And we’re off! Tomorrow that is.

By tomorrow afternoon, C.C., our two eldest daughters and their partners along with my grandson will be arriving in Mexico. We’ll spend 9 days together in a beautiful house we’ve rented on the beach in Todos Santos on the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula.  And then, on the 9th, the others will fly home and C.C. and I will fly to Huatulco for a week at Villas Fa Sol.

I am beyond excited.

The trip was inspired by my daughters who suggested we go away together to celebrate my birthday. I liked the idea of being away for this momentous (I think its momentous to turn 65 but I haven’t quite figured out all that it means! But ‘they’ tell me it’s important so I’m going with that) occasion. We considered all the options and, given the time of year, a warm vacation seemed most appropriate, especially as we are travelling with a 10 month old.

Before tomorrow there is still today. And I’ve got lots to do yet before shutting down my computer at work, turning out the lights and putting up the “On Vacation” sign on my door. (I don’t really have an “On Vacation” sign for my door but I do like the idea of it!)

So… back to turning 65 years young.

It is just a number, yet, this number puts me into a ‘new’ age bracket. I’m now officially a senior where ever I go. And when I say it I get the feeling I should be feeling different. Acting otherwise. thinking some other way.

Truth is… I truly don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling about turning 65. I’ve never been here before and other than the random thought of “OMG! I’m turning 65. What on earth does that mean?” I haven’t spent a lot of time contemplating this changing of the guard in the numbers representing my age.

There are a few things I’ve noticed…

I’ve got more aches and pains than I used to.

The arthritis in my feet flares up more frequently, making walking painful and yes, the finger I closed in the garage door when the motor went and I tried to close it manually a few years back does give me grief. It’s nubby and deformed and I’m often conscious of how it looks, especially because I talk so much with my hands.

And I can’t run a marathon anymore (lol. I can’t run very far at all but I still love to walk with Beau and spend time in nature) and I’ve definitely put on weight and there is more gray than black in my hair and more character lines on my face than I personally think I  need, but Mother Nature didn’t ask me how many lines I wanted and I think the number was predetermined when I was born based on the genetics I carried into this world anyway!

But really… what does turning 65 mean other than I get discounts every where and apparently, a bus pass is really cheap!

65 is just a number, an age, a day in time.

It’s not something I can avoid — though I did read somewhere about a guy who feels he can’t get dates on dating sites because of his age. He’s petitioned the courts to legally roll 20 years off his age because he believes he is more like a 45 year old in every way than his current 65!

Oh if it were so simple.

Fact is, I like my age. I’ve lived every moment of it. Worked my entire life to be this age and don’t really feel it is a detriment (fortunately I’m not on dating sites) :). Actually, in many ways I feel my age is my strength.

There was a time, when I was younger when I worried a great deal about what others thought of me. And, because I wanted their approval, I would say and do things that were not congruent with my values, beliefs or desires. I wanted to ‘fit in’ and would do a lot to make it happen.

Now, I’m comfortable with who I am, how I am and what I do in the world. I know I can make mistakes, hurt people through thoughtless words and actions, but the difference today is I don’t spend time defending my bad behaviour. I choose to own it. Apologize where necessary and move on. I no longer feel the need to stew in perceived injustices. Injustices happen. The world, and all its beautiful people is not perfect. But I can be perfectly happy with my place in the world, and I am.

Because something I’ve learned in getting to this beautiful number of 65 is… happiness is an inside-out job. I gotta be happy with me to be happy in my world.

Today, no matter my age, I choose to be happy with me in all my beauty and imperfections because that’s what makes my world a happier place. It’s only taken me 65 years to get here and I’m so very glad I am here.

Namaste.

I don’t know if it’s the late November blahs, excitement of leaving for Mexico for two weeks on Saturday and too much to get done before I go, or just my frame of mind before the advent of December, but yesterday I said to a friend, “Oh oh. I’m feeling ‘the bitchy’ rumbling. I need to breathe a few moments before I walk into any room because if I let ‘the bitchy’ take hold, there’s no telling how I might express myself.”

Fact is, when ‘the bitchy’ arises, it’s easy to let ‘stupid’ become the stinkin‘ expression of my angst-riddled thinkin‘ .

My friend laughed and told me how his go to place is depression. In that dark place, if left to its own ministrations, his tendency to dip down into sadness will turn to depression which he  expresses through dark clouds and stormy exclamations that can wreak havoc in the world around him. “I usually go off and hide when I feel the sadness coming on. I don’t trust myself to be around other people. Who knows what might set me off?” he said.

Most of us have them. Those ‘moods’ that descend seemingly out of nowhere to alter our outlook in the moment passing by with their cloudy, stormy dispositions. Those moods that, if left to their own devices, steal our peace of mind and inner balance with their insistence that angst-filled living is the only way to get satisfaction.

Like Mick Jagger and heartburn, “I can’t get no satisfaction” from my angst. I just get more angst.

I know they are there, those hazy mood altering shadows that penetrate my well-being when I’m paying the least attention. It’s not really all that important why, or what triggers them. Often, the trigger is as inexplicable as the mood. What is important is that I acknowledge its presence, greet it with love and set it free.

Like that poem broken-hearted lovers espouse, If you love something set it free, if it comes back it’s yours, if it doesn’t, it never was, ill humour is never mine to hold onto. (It’s also not mine to set free into the world!)

Which is why, when I identify fissures of discord arising within me, breathing becomes my default go-to.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Slowly. Quietly.

Breathe in. Breathe out. And as I breathe, ask for divine guidance, for sacred intervention to descend and open me up to expansion.

In expansion mode, ‘the bitchy’ has no room to grow. But when I’m contracted (which is what happens when I give into inner angst)… watch out. She ‘The bitchy’ likes to get in there and flex her muscles. She likes to mess things up.

And I slip into a state of being grateful and accepting of all that is in my life. As a dear friend once shared with me, gratitude and acceptance are states of being, not tools. “Rejoice in whatever is occurring rather than attempt to deny or deflect it” he said.. “Misery arises when I attempt to comprehend or “fit in” to my stories of what “should be”. There are no tools as there is nothing to fix.”

The bitchy visited. I do not need to comprehend or fit into her stories. I need to breathe and ‘open up to expansion’.

Yesterday, I thought I needed to corral ‘the bitchy’ into submission. Subdue her with mental gymnastics. I changed my mind.

I welcomed her in love. Greeted her with familiarity and let her flow without needing to express her angst with inappropriate behaviours.

In gratitude for her reminder that I am grateful for all things in my world, I breathed.

In. Out. In. Out.

Though brief, she reminded me to center once again in gratitude. She doesn’t need fixing. I don’t need changing. In the moment of acknowledging her presence, all I needed was to breathe and adjust my disposition to expand into love, not contract into fear, to let grace flow. In acknowledging her shadow I let her flow through gratitude into the light of love all around.

Outside my window, the world sleeps beneath a week old blanket of snow. The river flows by. Inside, my beloved sleeps in our bed. Beaumont lies curled up on the chaise beside me. I hold them in my mind’s eye and surround them with love.

I turn my sights to the world around me and let go of expectations of perfection as I open myself up to expansion of my gratitude of all I have and pour love into my day.

Whatever is happening out there, all is well in my world within me. May all be well in yours.

Namaste.

When my daughters were little and would fight, I’d tell them they had a right to their anger. They never had the right to be cruel or mean or unkind.

Words hurt.  Actions matter.

My goal was to teach them how to be accountable with their words and actions. To recognize that anger and any other emotion that triggers negative feelings is okay, It’s what you do with those feelings that matters. Just because you’re feeling hurt or angry, it doesn’t give us license to spill our ‘ill-will’ onto others.

Making ourselves feel better by making others feel worse is not okay.

It’s a lesson I am continuously learning.

When triggered by something someone else has done or said, or something that happened, be it on the news or in my community, or work, home, acting out is not okay.

Being 100% accountable for my words and actions is vital to creating the ‘better’ I want to create in the world around me.

Recently, something happened at work that triggered a memory I hadn’t thought of in years. It wasn’t a pleasant memory. In fact, it was extremely uncomfortable.

At the time of the incident, I didn’t remember the memory. But, as I drove home later, it flashed through my mind with the speed of a comet streaking across the sky.

I had a choice. Acknowledge it. Ignore it. Or let it trigger me into acting out.

I chose to acknowledge it.

Ignoring it would only have given it more power to interfere with my peace of mind.

Letting it trigger me into acting out would only have created situations where I’d probably have to go back and clean up my mess. I’ve grown tired of the need to have to apologize for my bad behaviour. It’s so self-defeating.

Instead, I acknowledged to myself that the incident had triggered a memory from a dark period in my past. “That was then. This is now.” I gently reminded myself. “You are safe in the here and now.”

Over the next few days I repeated the mantra I use to remind myself that I have the power to re-wire my neural pathways towards the light, not the dark. I developed this mantra with my therapist a few years ago when working on PTSD that had been triggered when I was encircled by an angry mob at a community engagement session I’d been part in my work to end homelessness in our city. The crowd didn’t want us building a 20 unit affordable housing apartment in their community. They got really vocal and almost violent in their response. In the moment, I stood them down and walked away. Afterwards, my mind went into overdrive connecting dots in the here and now to terrors I’d experienced in the there and then.

My mind wanted to remind me of how unsafe I was. My heart wanted to hold me in peace.

I went back into therapy.

My therapist explained how our minds are comfortable with habitual thinking. Following the neural pathways to the dark can be easier than flowing into the light. But, she said, you can retrain your mind to travel to the light. We talked at length about what was triggered by that event until it became really clear that the inciting fears were connected to old childhood beliefs.

In the here and now of that event as it was happening, I felt unsafe because I was.

In the here and now of the aftermath of that event. I was safe but was triggered by fears of lack of safety, lack of support, lack of belonging that were deeply connected to an unprotected childhood.

In our work together, I explored what was at the root of my feelings of lack of safety (the dark place) and developed a mantra to retrain my mind to take the path to the light (the peace of mind space).

I am grateful for opportunities where I am reminded of my power to choose the light. To choose the path to well-being over darkness. To choose to be kind to myself, and thus the world around me, so that I don’t have to then empty my shame bucket by apologizing to those I’ve hurt with my words and actions because I was triggered and felt the need to act out in my own defense.

The mind is an amazing place!  It has the power to hold us in the light of truth and beauty, honesty and Love. Or, it can drag us down into the dark places holding us captive to our fears.

Guiding my thinking back to the light makes my world a better place. It creates lightness of being and ease of mind.

I like it here.

Namaste.

Sometime ago, while waiting for a friend to arrive in the restaurant where we were meeting, I stared at a large painting hanging on the wall behind the bar. It was a surrealistic depiction of Christ on the cross. Simple. Stark. Provocative. What made it most interesting, however, was what I couldn’t figure out to be either a shovel or possibly a broom hanging from his left arm.

I wondered what it was. What it meant. Why it was there. What did it mean?

When my friend arrived I pointed at the painting and asked her what she thought that shadowy object meant.

She turned to look at the painting and said, “Do you mean that greyish section?”

“Yes,” I replied. “It’s slightly darker. It’s almost like a floor lamp hanging upside down…” My voice trailed away. I looked at the lights hanging from above the bar. They too looked like floor lamps hanging upside down. “Oh dear,” I laughed. “It’s the shadow of the light above the bar. It’s not part of the painting at all.”

We started to laugh. I told her how I’d spent the time I’d sat waiting, wondering about the purpose of that image in the painting. About how I’d had all sorts of ideas of the artist’s statement — like, we hung Christ on a cross and then made him dig his own grave, or dug our own graves by hanging him on a cross. Some of my ideas had become almost metaphysical in their explanation of the object in Christ’s hand — when in reality, there was no object in His hand. It was just a trick of the lighting.

In focusing on the shadow of that lamp I took my attention away from the actual painting and put it on something that was not part of the ‘real’ thing. I kept looking for meaning in the unreal as I struggled to understand what the shadow meant.

In life, we look for meaning out there — in the world around us — often believing that if we can just figure out ‘it’ means, the ‘it’ being whatever is happening around us at any given moment. We focus externally rather than looking inside ourselves, to where the real ‘it’ lives and breathes and expands with every breath we take and every thought we create.

Within each of us there is a ‘shadow’ waiting to be discerned, seen, embraced, understood, faced. In that moment of seeing our shadow and embracing its presence, we set ourselves free of the past, free of the limiting beliefs that would have us question our right to live up to our greatness.

We do not know what we do not know.

In looking at the painting that night, I did not know I was being tricked by a shadow until I took my focus off of what I saw, and moved my eyes to the source of the shadow.

Within me, I do not know how my shadow is tricking me until I take my focus off what I tell myself I believe to be true about myself — and face what I fear will happen to me if I face the self-limiting beliefs I tell myself are true — and step into the light of my possibilities free of the shadow of my limiting beliefs.

To create the life of my dreams I must be willing to look at what is hiding in my shadow. I must be willing to do the things I fear, to dig into my darkness and uncover the blocks, the limiting beliefs, the outdated ideas that keep me stuck, that keep me out of the light of living my best life yet.

That life can only be achieved when I fearlessly shine my light on the shadows I fear within me. In that place, there is nothing inside me so terrifying as the darkness I refuse to uncover from the past.

The past cannot hurt me. The past only exists in my mind and in my mind is all the power, all the tools I need to reach inside my heart and love myself for all I’m worth.

In the end, there was no shovel. There was only darkness coming to light.

The question is: What truth is your shadow hiding? Are you willing to dig into it and uncover the light?