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Wise Older Women!
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August, 2007 Newsletter
Because you have subscribed, you are receiving this newsletter honoring the wisdom and integrity of women in the second half of life. If your mail host program has difficulty delivering this newsletter, you can view it, as well as previous newsletters at: Table of Contents: Welcome Women’s Wisdom WOW! Forum WOW! to WOW! Upcoming Events Web Sites of Interest Closing Notes
*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* WELCOME! Last call for cruisers! If you’re not signed up for the 2008 WOW! Cruise, rush to the nearest phone and call Pam (1-800-953-7469). Our cruise this year will leave from New Orleans February 24 and return March 2, 2008. It’s wonderful fun to travel with other women and a great deal—a seven-night cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line’s Spirit in a cabin with a view for under $100 a day per person? Less for an interior room. Only because we are traveling as a group can we bring such value. There is more complete information in Upcoming Events. We welcome all our new subscribers this month, and Ricky from Ethiopia gets a special hello! Every new friend is a delight, but those from far away bring a little extra thrill. Whoooweeee! Last month’s topic, Being vs. Doing, stirred up the universe. So many thoughtful responses from subscribers, but that’s not all. Information flooded my email box from most every newsletter I receive and some other places, too. In order to make room to pass it all along to you, I’ll skip writing a topic for this month. You might guess that the timing is perfect for me. I can use the break this month. Since I last visited with you about little to do, I facilitated for five days at the Third Women’s Peace Conference in Dallas, made a trip to Colorado, and moved. Talk about turning into a do-er! So this month, I’ll just organize all the pertinent information and pass it along to you. You will be stimulated, tantalized, and informed by everything you see in Women's Wisdom and WOW! Forum. I hope more responses from you on Being vs. Doing will be triggered. I want to give a special thanks to Cheryl Richardson, author, coach and more, who has graciously given me permission to reprint her entire newsletter. Look for her contact information in Websites of Interest. Be well, Nancy
*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* WOMEN’S WISDOM: “A person’s worth is contingent upon who he is, not upon what he does, or how much he has. The worth of a person, or a thing, or an idea, is in being, not in doing, not in having.” - Alice Mary Hilton, -Women at Heart Newsletter (Alice Mary must have written this many years ago when it was politically correct to use ”he.”)
Each blossom still blooms in its field; each child still clutches your hand; each friend still lingers in your heart. And that, dear Ones, is where time goes. - Forever young, - The Universe
"Be
mindful of how you approach time.
Sophia Bedford-Pierce
WOW! FORUM: The following is from Life Makeover for the Year 2007 newsletter "Living with Space: Making Peace with Boredom.” “Life Makeover for the Year 2007” is written and produced by Cheryl Richardson. © Copyright 1999-2007 Cheryl Richardson, P.O. Box 13, Newburyport, MA 01950, www.cherylrichardson.com All rights reserved. Used with permission. "Boredom is the gateway to peace." --Thomas Leonard ~*~ Topic of the Week - Learning to Be Bored ~*~ This week I did a little research on boredom. I asked several friends about their ability to slow down and do nothing and discovered that it's clearly not an easy thing for most people to "do." Many friends said that the minute they had extra time on their hands, they felt uncomfortable and immediately began doing something. Together we laughed at the kind of things we've done. See if you can identify with any of them . . . You know you have a tough time with boredom when: 1. You keep a box of dental floss, nail files, or pens and paper in your car so you have something to do when you hit a traffic jam. 2. You begin cleaning out your purse or wallet when you have extra time before an appointment. 3. You clean the dashboard of your car while waiting in a slow moving drive-thru line at your local coffee shop. 4. You start dusting the furniture or cleaning out drawers when you finally have a night to yourself. 5. When you have a spare half hour during the day, you call someone who drains your energy. 6. You start reading the phone book in a hotel room (okay, this one was not me, I swear :). 7. You find yourself engrossed in a story about a three-headed baby while standing in the checkout line at the grocery store. In an adrenaline-fueled society, learning to do nothing can be quite a challenge, but with practice, you'll discover that those feelings of boredom quickly give way to a sense of peace and serenity that will fuel you in a whole new way. My lesson on boredom came more than twelve years ago while working with my first coach, Thomas Leonard. During our work together, Thomas dared me to master the art of being bored so I could get to the peace of mind on the other side -- something I longed for at that time in my life. To do this, I had to create much more space in my life than I felt comfortable with. For example, I needed to clear my schedule to free up my nights and weekends. He suggested I let go of several projects and goals (some I really wanted) to put an end to what appeared to be a career of "striving." And, he recommended that I stop my relentless pursuit of new ideas so I could settle down, be with my own thoughts, identify my true priorities, and connect with a spiritual power that would allow me to create my life from a deeper, more authentic place. Learning to be bored is like learning to meditate. You need to hang on through a period of restlessness before you can experience the benefits. Once you get used to it though, you not only learn to relax, you learn so much more. You learn to enjoy your own company. You learn to develop selfdiscipline -- a skill that will serve you in other areas of your life. You learn to be less impulsive so you can make better decisions. These benefits don't happen overnight. As you begin to practice being bored, you'll most likely experience the typical fear-based thoughts that will try to pull you back into "doing." They go something like this: "Everyone else is getting ahead but me." "I'm missing out on important opportunities." "I won't succeed fast enough." "I'm being irresponsible and/or unproductive." "This is a complete waste of time." "If I keep this up, I'll become a lazy sloth who never gets anything done." These thoughts are just your mind telling you lies in the hopes of keeping you busy and disconnected from your true Self. Here's the truth: Once you get good at being bored and are able to maintain a reserve of space in your life, you will engage a spiritual power that will draw toward you the people, opportunities, and resources you'll need to accomplish your goals quickly and easily. If this sounds a bit far fetched, don't take my word for it, give boredom a try. Start making space in your life and see what happens. *~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* From Debby Holt: Oh, Nancy - I may have to read that book. Feeling non-productive has really been an issue for me. It seems that I cannot let go and just be. I have too many roles to play. I have too much clutter to be comfortable. I feel so scattered and unfocused. I don't like this tone of my inner voice. I want to work on my scrapbooks. I want to read a good book - or finish the one I have started, at least. Instead I just run errands, clean up my messes, make phone calls, answer phone calls, read and answer emails, feed myself and my dog, clean up the kitchen. My time is just sucked up by trivial minutiae of daily stuff and I don't seem to get anything meaningful accomplished. Except. . . visit with friends, go to church, help couples with weddings at our church, go to my water aerobics class, read the WOW! newsletter, gasp at a rainbow, smile at a cardinal flying across my back yard, watch a good movie. . or a bad one. Que sera, sera. . . that's life. Nancy, your description of the small, simple space of your living quarters sounded like heaven to me. I think a smaller simpler place to live would be much more conducive to just being without having so much to do. Shirley, I loved your story about the soup. I love that you gathered your friend-family to help. I know that they loved that you asked and that they could do something to help their good friend in this time. I think about you and see you well and whole. I remember very clearly our experience at the WOW! retreat in 2004. You are a special person and the world is a good place for your presence in it. Be well. From Jena Robertson: Nancy, I read your newsletter article this morning and it really interested me. As usual, I find out other women are going through the same things I am at this age, (although I am older than you.) All of our lives have been equated to our value, our worth, what we produce or what we do or what we accomplish each and every day. Some women have learned it's not that valuable anymore, that it is a system that has been worked out to control and hold people down. Men and Women. Men seem to buy into it more than we do for some reason. They equate their value by how much they do during a day. I have a friend who does nothing but work. He does not read a newspaper, no books of any kind, no TV, not even the news, history programs etc. He only knows songs from years and years ago, he doesn't know about any singers in the last few years, not even movies. He is totally closed off in his own little world. Tunnel vision I call it. It is amazing to me, how a person can go through life, feeling their importance depends on how much brush they have piled, or burned, how many holes for poles for fences they have dug, all day long, day after day. And women, we are the same. As you said, you have all this free time now and you don't know what to do with yourself. We talk about when the time comes, we can sit and read all day, lie in a hammock in the sun, watch the birds and squirrels, feel the sun on our faces, loving the soft breezes as they blow across our skins, nothing to worry about, no supper to fix, no one to wait on, no one to clean up after, eat when and what you want, go see a friend and sit and talk, go to a movie you have been wanting to see, go to your favorite restaurant alone, (they always looked surprised and say, just one?) Red Lobster for me, and have your favorite meal and a glass of wine and watch the people around you. I study them, try to figure them out. I think, that couple over there, not a happy couple, they haven't said a word to each other in over 30 minutes, that couple there, looking at each other and talking to each other, happy, I would guess, a mother alone with 3 kids, trying to enjoy herself and keep 3 kids sitting, eating and behaving. Visiting an old friend in a nursing home. Sitting by a bedside, reading to a friend that can't read anymore, taking your grandchild to a movie or McDonalds or Braums for an ice cream treat. Why is it, we think of all these things and yet when the day comes we have all this time, we sit and despair because our kids don't come see us, our grandchildren are too busy with friends and activities to spend time with us. We don't do all the things we know are out there to do, we sit and wish we had something to do, we feel we are wasting our days by doing nothing and yet, some days, that is exactly what we need to do. I, too, am in the process of moving. Where? I am not sure--one day it's to Michigan, where my son lives and wants me to come live in his house, rent free. I have some friends left there from 31 years ago when I lived there. It's beautiful, all the trees and the summers are so much cooler than Texas. I also can go to Garland to be close to my daughter and granddaughters. I have lived close to them for 14 years now and it will be very hard to break away from them. I will miss them so much. I am afraid to go to Garland for I know how busy they all are, and I am afraid I will end up being alone like I was when they lived here. Oh, I knew they were 5 minutes away and if I needed instant help, they would be here but I couldn't seem to make a life for myself here. No one befriended me, Lord knows, I tried when I first moved here to make friends, then I gave up. So I came to depend on my daughter and expect her to be here for me at all times. I know there is a WOW! group in Dallas at Spring Valley, and a new group may be forming in Richardson. There is nothing like that in Michigan. It’s a very small town. So back and forth I go. Are you having this problem or did you have this problem in making your decision to move to SA, Nancy? What made you decide to go there? I think you and I can and should make this journey together, each and every day we should make contact and talk about our decisions and what we are doing with this wonderful gift of time we have now. What do you say? Anyone else out there, gone through this, going through this? I am torn too because I know my son wants me to come there and be close to him. We have been apart for so long, not seeing each other as much as we both would like, and my daughter and granddaughters want me close to, they are use to having me near them. So this is a hard decision for me. Help? Answers? And then, Jena sent this: I got a really good insight on my thinking and my decision making. I can see how I depended on my daughter and her family because I had no one else here, but if I move to someplace like Garland I can make new friends, join new groups and have a life for myself again without expecting too much and depending too much on my daughter. Thank you for your wisdom. From Suzie Gallagher: Well, it is July 13, 2007...mid summer...I have finally shaken off all the dust and slime from the past school year...and the approaching one has not begun to bother me yet...I have done a lot of "stuff" this week...projects and plans I am always working on...tile for the hallway which I am going to put down myself, preparing my bathroom for redoing...painting...new baseboards, mirror, lights, etc...gardening...dog-sitting...cleaning out the garage...cabinets...closets...seeing friends...movies...reading...sleeping late...trying new recipes...healthy ones...looking at a bizillion things on the internet...and some "just sitting and staring"...some of that stuff that is of "no value." I have been receiving your WOW Newsletters for years (?) now. I read them sometimes, sometimes I put them in an email folder labeled "Friends"...I don't ever delete them...you are one of my good friends...and they are golden... So, today, with my cup of tea and KUT on the radio and the hum of the AC and the overhead fan...two of the best inventions of the 20th century...I settled down to read the most recent WOW! missive... I loved reading your contribution at the outset...I so related...and then I laughed and laughed at the jokes...Thank you for the laughter... From Patsy Tucker: Thank you for your truth telling....gee, do I understand. I'm in so much the same place it isn't funny. For so long the 'human doing' rather than 'human being' person has lived as me. I'm just no fun to be with...even with me being with me. The selling of my house...moving here to the Villa...what a change. Still trying to figure out what to do with several large boxes full of 'stuff' from my kitchen. I went to both my storage units to see about the 'stuff', trying to reduce to just one unit. What a dilemma...what to keep...what to give or throw away or donate....WHAT TO DO WITH ALL MY STUFF.....Ah..... Who am I anyway? From Betty Lambert: GREAT JOB! From Judith Harrison: Just finished reading the newsletter and really enjoyed it. I found your commentary particularly pertinent; it's been at the top of my "puzzler" list for about four years now (since I retired and moved). It's one of those big issues that can be understood and accepted intellectually but is a bear of a belief to live by. The concept of doing is so thoroughly drilled into most of us from babyhood and has most of its rewards in making us feel "good". I feel like such a "good" girl when I'm doingdoingdoingdoing.....for the community, the neighborhood, the children, the house, the yard........ I am ashamed to admit that 'just being' feels wrong, bad and selfish. And what exactly is just being anyway? Is it when I let everything go and just lie on the sofa and read, listen, be still and drift or nap? Is it when I am doing things that are specifically for me like a long soak in the tub, reading, experimenting with my hair, etc? or is it when I am doing absolutely nothing, just breathing, feeling my body occupying this space, more like meditation? Yes, it is a mix of all but, sadly, we know what usually gets first attention and what routinely sits at the bottom waiting for an idle moment when there is nothing left to do. Perhaps I need to go look for Dr. Thomas' book. Maybe he defines just being in language I can understand. I have long been a student of being still, and I am sure I will not graduate in my lifetime. Moving around, doing, making lists of things to do and read and say and learn and be, all at the top of my daily agenda with no forethought at all, just there. I don't even have to push a start button because the activity is always in motion. It is the way I was taught and it is almost comfortable because it is so familiar. I've given myself a headache just musing over your article; I find it disturbing..........it covers everything I know and think about being on the planet. And I can't find an answer, a way to live out a different sort of guidelines that nourishes and comforts me. SOMEBODY HELP ME!! From Shirley Haight: I hardly know how to begin to tell you how much I related to your articles this month. How much I agreed with you. At your suggestion I am reading this book "What Are Old People For" too. It's one of those life changing books, like Peck's "The Road Less Traveled" or "Jubilee Time" by Maria Harris. All of them have informed my life. I would not be who I am had I never read them. I hope when you get settled in you will write a book on all you have learned just in the last eight years when you first read "Age-ing to Sage-ing." It turned the light on for you. You know you had been preparing for this a very long time. This is where your life is going, how better to help us all, than through the written word. I’m glad you’re spending your time being and doing this. I have little use for old women still smearing blue eye shadow on their eyes and missing their lip lines with lipstick and forgetting to draw on one of their eyebrows! I am an old woman: OLD, OLD, OLD, OLD!!!! I embrace being an old woman and when I get well I am going to take names and kick butts if this medical community doesn't stop pissing me off. This book aforementioned says that it's because a grandmother chewed up food and placed it in her grand child's mouth we have a civilization today. I know in my heart that's the truth! From Mary Salerno: For those who weren't at the WOW! Circle, I’m sending this because it represents my first paying gig for writing and some asked for the link to it. It’s on Common Ties, so here you go: http://www.commonties.com/blog/2007/07/11/teach-your-children-well For anyone else interested in submitting a story, click on the 'submit a story' link in the upper right of the screen for info on that. Thanks so much for your sisterly support! From Elizabeth: Greetings! Wonderful to learn of this much needed organization. Perhaps you could put me in touch with a Wise Older Women group in New Hampshire. I will look forward to hearing from you and hopefully connecting with a local group. Travel gently.
*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* WOW! to WOW! From Jena Robertson: Over 60 Q's and A's - Q: What can a man do while his wife is going through menopause? A: Keep busy. If you're handy with tools, you can finish the basement. When you are done you will have a place to live. Q: How can you increase the heart rate of your 60+ year old husband? A: Tell him you're pregnant. Q: How can you avoid spotting a wrinkle every time you walk by a mirror? A: The next time you're in front of a mirror, take off your glasses. Q: Why should 60+ year old people use valet parking? A: Valets don't forget where they park your car. Q: Is it common for 60+ year olds to have problems with short term memory storage? A: Storing memory is not a problem, retrieving it is a problem. Q: As people age, do they sleep more soundly? A: Yes, but usually in the afternoon. Q: Where do 60+ year olds look for fashionable glasses? A: Their foreheads. Q: What is the most common remark made by 60+ year olds when they enter antique stores? A: "I remember these". From Pat Gordon: Life gets better with age, very true!http://home.att.net/~soloshideaway/697/age.htm
*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* UPCOMING EVENTS:
WOW! Cruise, February, 2008
Join us on NCL’s Spirit February 24, 2008
for a week of fun and sun!
Hurry! Space is very limited, don’t miss
the boat! (Want to check out the Norwegian Spirit? Click on www.cruisecritic.com then Ship Reviews .. and enjoy!)
PLEASE NOTE:
*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* WEB SITES OF INTEREST: WOW! Wise Older Women! website: Subscribe to this newsletter and view archives of previous ones: http://www.wiseolderwomen.com From Gather the Women: http://www.gatherthewomen.org From Kate Emery: http://www.CareCircle.net , a free online community offering you a way to connect with other like-minded people who care about a global or local issue Sign up for Cheryl’s newsletter here: http://www.cherylrichardson.com/newsletter Sign up for Women at Heart Newsletter: http://www.women-at-heart.com Sign up for Daily Notes from the Universe: http://www.tut.com
*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~* CLOSING NOTES: Enjoy this newsletter? Want to change the paradigm for women in the second half of life to one that values our wisdom? Forward this month's newsletter to all WOW! Wise Older Women! friends. It’s easy to start a WOW! Circle in your area. Email nancy@wiseolderwomen.com Your creative efforts, astute comments, lavish praise and short criticisms are encouraged and appreciated. Send them to nancy@wiseolderwomen.com Copyright© 2007, all rights reserved. Permission is granted to reproduce, copy or distribute this newsletter as long as this copyright notice and full information about contacting the author are attached. The author of this newsletter is Nancy Garland, M.Ed., LPC. She is a writer, coach and facilitator for women in the second half of life, individually and in groups. She plans workshops, retreats, and travel events for WOW! Wise Older Women!
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