In The Warp and Weft of Life

Posted on September 1, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

Yesterday, I shared a metaphor about how to me, life is a runway – I have more behind me than in front of me.

Others shared their view of life as a highway.

I think it is the beauty of this space in life where every perspective has value. There is no one metaphor for life. It is a journey and as so many people chimed in and said, it’s about quality and living each moment we are here to its fullest.

Curious, I went in search of other metaphors for life and found these on VeryWellMind, along with some wise counsel on the importance of occasionally checking our metaphors for life to ensure they are not limiting. Where once they worked, maybe today they don’t.

Some examples of metaphors for life from VeryWellMind include:

"Life is a song; we each get to write our own lyrics."
"Life is a puzzle; you can only see the picture when you put all the pieces together."
"Life is a garden; with care and love you can cultivate beautiful flowers."
"Life is a classroom; you'll always be learning new things."

Metaphors are important. They ignite the imagination, give us a visual context that can open us up to new perspectives by comparing a figurative example to open us up to seeing a situation, person, thing from a creative/different viewpoint. s

The metaphor I used yesterday of the runway was triggered by a conversation at the board retreat for THIRD ACTion Film Fest which I attended on Saturday. (If you haven’t checked THIRD ACTion out – DO! – though I’m sorry if you’re not in Canada you won’t be able to view any of the films online.)

In the retreat, we were talking about ageism. A couple of my fellow board members said they’d never experienced ageism.

I shared the story of how, when I was looking to leave the workforce in 2019, the board had asked if I would stay on. I told them that in good conscience, I could only commit to a maximum two-year timeline. Their response was, “We need more runway.”

That phrasing has sat with me for a long time. I’ve been curious about it — when I gave a two-year timeline I was acutely aware that at almost 66 I wasn’t sure if I had the energy and drive to continue to hold such a high-pressure, demanding role. Especially as the role of an Executive Director of a not-for-profit is seldom 9 to 5.

I had other things I wanted to do in my life and, as so many people commented yesterday, Quality counts.

Quality time with my beloved, my family, quality time doing the things I love, like writing, painting, walking, teaching art-journalling, and participating in art shows – are all very important to me and my mental health. Not to mention my overall sense of well-being, feeling balanced, and embodied in this present moment.

All of which, inspired me to consider what metaphor best describes my life today.

Life is like a giant loom upon which I weave, every day, a beautiful tapestry that is the living picture of my life.

Of course, as I am a wordsmith and love to dive deep into what stirs my spirit into soaring, I had to write more about my tapestry…

My tapestry is made of up beautiful, colourful ribbons. Each ribbon brings its own value, tone, hue,depth, width, and sense of being to the warp and weave. Some ribbons are woven all the way through, some ended their journey into the tapestry long ago, and some I’m just discovering as i continue to load my loom with vibrant hues of life unfolding in all its mystery, majesty and wonder.

How fast I weave is up to me. Life itself will determine when my tapestry is done. All life asks of me is to keep weaving as much joy, laughter, beauty, peace, harmony and Love into the warp and weft of my life, every day.

Do you have a metaphor for your life?

If you do, I hope you feel this is a safe and courageous space to share it.

Namaste

Episode 13: Dare Boldly: No Matter Your Age – Metaphors for life

Born Too Soon To Live So Long

Posted on August 31, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

As I was meditating this morning a thought popped into my head. It didn’t disturb the serenity of the moment as much as awaken me to the possibility of the moment.

“You know Louise, one of the daunting aspects of aging into your 60s and beyond is that there is zero question about how much runway is in front of you. Less than there is behind.”

Oh.

True. But does it matter? Is it the length of the runway in front or behind that’s important in this moment as much as how well I use the runway before me? Will my final approach to the inevitable end of this flight I call my life, land me safely with grace and ease in the forever after? Or, will it be a bumpy, bone-jolting setting down that unnerves me right to the last breath it takes away?

It is an undeniable fact. While scientists state the first person to live to one hundred and twenty is already walking this earth, I am probably not that person.

Which kind of means… I’m running out of runway.

‘Cause I’m born too soon to live so long.

It kind of sounds like the title of a C&W song. “Born too soon to live so long / I still got a long ways to go / I gotta make each moment count / ’cause living’ ain’t over until I play / the final note of my living ode…”

Ooops. Sorry. A momentary lapse in paying attention to this very serious conversation.

But seriously, none of us truly know when the end of that runway will come.

What I do know, is that no matter how long it has taken me to get to this moment, what I do in the next one counts. And how I make it count is up to me.

Yesterday, on my IG feed, the comments regarding me and my ego’s burst of self-pity and concern over ‘my aging look’ generated some powerful responses. One of those responses by my music-video daughter, @LauraHickle, was so full of undeniable truths that I think I might tattoo it on my forehead!

In her response, Laura wrote, “These insecurities would no doubt be intensified with age just due to the way society has erased aging from beauty standards and culture in general. What I like to find power in is just how incredibly punk rock it is to say NO. I am important. I am alive. I have something to say. I exist. Aging exists. Skin conditions exist. Fat exists. And none of this is wrong. None of this is wrong. It is capitalism that has convinced us we should be small and young. It is the misogyny that has led us to believe beauty is equal to our worth…. Photoshopped capitalistic beauty standards fall to the shadow when someone says ‘hello, I exist.’

Wow.

You can read all of the amazing comments as well as the full text of Laura’s on my IG page here:

Which brings me back to ‘my runway’.

I don’t know how long it is before I get to the end. I do know there’s more behind me than in front of me.

So… the question becomes, How high do I dare to fly before touchdown?

How high do I dare to raise my voice and sing out loud, “Look at me! Here I am!”

To cry out, NO! To shout out YES. To claim without hesitation, I am alive!

How wide do I dare to stretch my arms? To embrace life in all its ups and downs and ins and outs?

How fast do I dare to run? Into the unknown? Into the mystery? Into the magic? Into LIFE!

How fast and far do I dare to go to release myself from the tyranny of believing I am becoming invisible? I am losing the light? I am getting too old to live out loud?

What wonderful questions to live into on this beautiful last day of August.

I was @LauraHickli ‘s music video mom!

Posted on August 30, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

I think the title of this post could be a movie title!

Fact is, yesterday, to support @LauraHickli and the release of her newest song/music video, yesterday I got to play her mother.

It was energizing and exhausting. Invigorating and difficult.

Movie-making involves a lot of repetition.

One tiny moment in a scene played over, again and again, wide lens, close-up lens, fast speed, slow motion. Every minute detail of one movement filmed to capture that ‘beauty shot’, to tell a compelling story that both awakens the mind and touches the heart.

In movie making, every detail counts.

Yesterday, the years on my face, the wrinkly skin on my hands, the arthritic knob on my knuckle – they all played a role in the video.

And man. Was I uncomfortable.

I have never been enamoured with watching myself on screen.

Watching myself in close-up on screen…

Wow. That’s an even bigger leap of faith and, leap into self-love.

Stilling that chattering voice in my head, you know, the one who says, “Gawd you look old. Look at your double chin. Shouldn’t you have lost that twenty pounds before agreeing to do this.And, seriously, you look soooooo old….”

Yeah. That voice.

Well, when the film is up close and personal, that voice goes into its relentless hyper-active self-debasing vitriolic screeching with great enthusiasm!

I am remembering to breathe.

To ground myself in self-love.

To remind myself that falling in love with myself means acceptance of all of me, as I am, not as how I wished I was, once upon a time, when I was younger, or prettier, or slimmer, or a whole swathe of ‘things’ I am not now.

I think that’s one of the big lessons I’m learning from these conversations and from yesterday – aging and wishing it was something, other than what it is, are not comfortable life partners.

To age with grace, I must become comfortable with reality.

And as I write that last sentence I smile and laugh.

Someone once asked me why I don’t paint scenery or people or things as they truly appear in life. My response… I don’t do reality.

Time to face reality with a smile, a warm welcome and, a word of two of gratitude for what it has provided me in my life — the ability to breathe freely without fearing every breath I take will be my last.

Which also makes me smile.

Because, life, particularly as I come closer to my 70s, is feeling like a change of seasons. As summer’s end fast approaches, I cherish the still warm nights, the blossoms still left on the stems, the leaves not turned golden, the geese not yet flying south.

I cherish all these things deeply because they are reminders of summer I do not want to end. They are a foretelling of winter as I become exquisitely aware of autumn’s approach.

I want to cling to summer’s beauty, yet know that there are autumn vistas that will take my breath away in the riotuous colours of leaves falling and flowers shedding their dewy blossoms.

Like the sun’s rays reaching closer to the southern hemisphere as earth moves in its eternal orbit in the sky, I want to reach across time and capture all of nature’s beauty, old and new, in my arms and hold it tight as if in doing so, I can forestall time, and the relentless reality of its passing days.

It’s time to let go of wishing I could hold onto ‘what was’ and breathe deeply into the promise of all the beauty still to come in living this life with my heart and mind wide-open to the limitless possibilities of my life – today.

When I stop looking back at ‘how I looked’ compared to how I appear now, the wrinkles fade and I no longer feel the need to measure my age in the lines written on my face or even the calendar pages turned.

I no longer feel compelled to hide behind the memories of all I’ve done, nor do I feel the need to ‘wish’ I could do what I used to do with the same vigor or ease.

In this space of summer gracefully easing into autumn’s glory, I feel myself becoming, each beat of my heart, each moment that takes my breath away, each glorious day of riotuous colour and turning leaf.

In this space, I become… Love.

In this space, I am… In Love with me, my life and everyone in it. It is here I live within the quiet joy of being part of this life, right now, deeply embodied within this moment unfolding as it becomes the measure of my day.

The Beauty In Pain

Posted on August 29, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

Aging isn’t all sweetness and laughter. As we move from 20 to 30, 30 to 40, 40 and on, the changes in our body become more noticeable, and in some cases, more defining of who we are or how we live our days.

Some days, we stand in front of the mirror and pull back our skin from the corners of our eyes, our mouth,, our cheekbones and wonder… Dare I? Do I need to? Is it worth it? Am I ok the way I am?

And everyday, we see a new tiny fragment of a line. Feel a new tiny little pain. Will it grow bigger we wonder?

I remember, probably around my middle 50s, waking up one morning and realizing that the pillow crease embedded on the side of my right eye (the side I sleep on) was not going to vanish as the day moved on.

It was humbling. Scary. Unnerving.

It was also a relief.

If it’s not going away, I’d best learn to accept it. Maybe even fall in love with it. Because, to love ALL of me, I must love everything about me. Including those crinkles at the edges of my eyes that don’t disappear in the morning.

Life (which fundamentally is the aging process) is a process full of joy, laughter, love and pain as well. Exploring for and uncovering the beauty in pain, letting the essential nature of its presence be revealed in the exquisiteness of all we are becoming, is an act of courage, hope and strength mixed up with a bit of defiance too!

Ultimately, aging is about expanding into loving all of yourself. ALL of yourself. The parts you celebrate. The strong parts. The falling apart parts. The parts you’d rather not see. The parts that make you want to undress in the dark before crawling into bed. The parts you’d rather your lover didn’t touch.

Expanding into all of yourself is a journey best taken with a whole bunch of laughter and LOVE.

And perhaps, that is the greatest gift of aging. Expanding into all of ourselves, doesn’t leave much room for fixating on the pain of what we’ve experienced to get here, or the how of how we look because how we look loses its luster against the brilliance of loving all of ourselves, however we look, whatever path we took to get to this moment right now.

This week, I hope you join me in exploring the expansiveness of aging and falling in LOVE with ALL of YOURSELF.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. I am so grateful for the stories, wisdom, hope, laughter, you share. I am so grateful to have your company on this path. As I said to a friend yesterday when she asked if I was afraid of aging, “So much of this exploration is about trying to figure out how I FEEL about this thing called aging. I’m not sure what I FEEL. I know I don’t feel scared. Or unhappy. But how do I FEEL? Excited. Curious. Sometimes confused. Sometimes just tired of the whole conversation.”

Which made me laugh.

I’m the one who started this conversation here. And I’m loving it! Wanting to “know the ending first’ is how I read books! 🙂

Life doesn’t work like that. The story’s written one day at a time. And each page turned leads to a new adventure – no matter your age and woven into every page are the joy, laughter, sorrow and pain we’ve experienced along the way.

As long as I’m turning each page and living each day in its joyful fullness, it doesn’t matter how long I’ve been on this journey of my lifetime. What matters most is that I’m on it, loving all of me as I go.

I am so grateful for this day.

Namaste

Day 11 – Week 3 — DAre Boldly: No Matter Your Age

Why do we think aging is ugly?

Posted on August 25, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

Years ago, I read an article about a group of social scientists who went around the world asking different cultures what attributes they value most. (Be forewarned – I have long since forgotten where I read about the study and can’t provide the evidence. I don’t remember much else about it other than the three shared human attributes/values they presented ahve always stuck with me.)

They are: Health. Education. Youth.

NOw, Health and Education make sense. Our physical and mental health impact everything we do, how we are in the world as well as how we see the world.

Youth was an interesting one to me.

Yet, if I drill down into the idea that Youth is extolled by cultures around the world, I can see where it outranks things like Beauty.

Beauty can be subjective. Take piercings. There was a time where in North American culture, piercings were beautiful if in the ears. Now, they can appear anywhere on the body because for some, it looks beautiful.

Same as tattoos.

But Youth. Ah yes. No matter the cultural/social environment in which you live, youth is cherished, and nurtured. It is full of possibilities, full of opportunity, full of LIFE! – if only by the fact it is so far away from the known cause of leaving this world, death.

And here’s the thing. I do miss some of the attributes of my younger body. The way my knees and back and feet could move with ease. Heck, I’m seeing a physio right now so that I can heal some of the damage dislocating my left should 3 times has caused. I really, really want to be able to sleep on my left side again! Know what I mean?

Bottomline though, we have this unconscious/implicit bias that says – Youth is Beautiful. Age… especially when it is so visible through wrinkles and crepey skin appearing on our faces and bodies, well that’s just plain old ugly.

To be clear, I don’t consciously hold those thoughts in my head — implicit bias isn’t a ‘conscious’ thought. It lies stealthily buried beneath centuries of conditioning and social assumptions that undermine our worth, value and ability to celebrate ALL of what it means to be on this human journey – at every age.

Today’s video talks about this issue through the lens of what recently transpired here in Canada with Lisa LaFlamme, a Canadian icon in the broadcasting news arena. Bell/CTV ended her contract abruptly, cutting off her access to millions of loyal followers of her nightly National News.

The uproar has been loud, angry and at times, bitter. Lisa LaFlamme has risen above the fracas and demonstrated what it means to ‘age with grace’. And while 58 doesn’t seem that old to me, to her employers, it apparently was. Especially when combined with her decision to not continue dying her hair and go ‘au naturel’ on millions of TV screens. For Ms LaFlamme it was a beautiful and impactful gesture of solidarity with the millions of women who chose to stop dying their hair through Covid’s advances,

One unnamed source leaked a CTV executive asked, “Who told her she could let her hair go grey?”

Seriously?

I don’t think Mother Nature gives us a choice. It just does.

For some of us, like me, hiding it takes too much work. I can’t be bothered to dye it.

For others, the choice is to colour it.

Either way — it is our personal choice how we deal with Mother Nature’s flow.

Underlying all of this is a question I keep returning to. It’s one of the questions I ask in my video today and I do hope you share your thoughts and wisdom and experiences. Because… I still don’t have an answer: Why do we think aging is ugly?

Infantilizing older adults is not ok.

Posted on August 24, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

I have a confession.

It took me about 5 tries filming the video for today before I even came close to feeling comfortable with it.

Unconscious Bias. It’s a tough subject matter to delve into.

And today’s personal reflection is one that has quietly been stirring my thoughts for many years.

It’s about my mother and something that happened in the Assisted Living housing where she lived from her late 80s into her 90s.

Now conversations about my mother are often complicated and complex. This one is particularly challenging for me as I’m struggling to make sense of what I’m thinking, feeling and want to say.

It starts with an implicit bias where we ‘infantilize’ older adults with both the things we expect them to conform to and the words we use to describe them.

In this case, it was a Christmas concert in which my mother played in the Bell Choir.

I was always inspired by her desire to participate and do things creative. In this case, I was inspired by her bell ringing.

What disturbed me then, and still confuses me today is the manner in which the organizers of the concert insisted the performers come on stage.

They dressed all the choir members with reindeer ears, little mittens and then made them prance like reindeer as they came onto stage.

Now, if that had been one of my daughter’s grade 1 classes, I’d have been oohing and cooing about how sweet and cute they all were.

But these were older adults. People who had spent a lifetime maturing into themselves, building histories and stories, families and lives that mattered to them.

It felt disrespectful to treat them like children and then use words that I’d have used for my children to describe their presence.

And that’s where unconscious/implicit bias rears its sinister head.

See, it was really cute and sweet but, was it fair or honouring of the individuals’ on that stage?

Now, to be clear, this isn’t about saying it’s not okay to put on reindeer ears and prance around. If that’s your jam, go for it!

But, in the organizer’s insistence that everyone in the choir dress-up and act like reindeer, they took away the individual choir member’s agency and undermined their dignity through the inherent infantilization of their age.

And I compounded the issue by further infantilizing their performance with the words used to describe everyone, including our expressions of surprise that the performers could learn to play bells in the first place.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’m still working through mine — all these years later it still bothers me how the words I used to describe my mother’s participation had little to do with her talent and proficiency at bell ringing and more to do with how cute and sweet she looked in her reindeer ears as she pranced onto stage.

Until I started seeing it all through the lens of implicit bias, I hadn’t quite been able to grasp what had concerned me about that performance (and others I witnessed at the assisted living centre too).

Thanks for reading and being part of the conversation.

Namaste

Episode 8: When we infantilize older adults, we undermine their agency and dignity

Episode 7 – The Gifts of Aging

Posted on August 23, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

As both my computer and phone decided to say good-bye at the same time, I have had to purchase a new laptop and iPhone – I thought about switching from the MS world as well as the iPhone world but… I decided to ‘stay the course’ with what I was familiar with, both for ease and immediacy.

The thing is though, my phone and laptop were both about 3-4 years old. ‘Back then’, when I got them and had to load my data from the old to the new, it was a cumbersome task that left me feeling frustrated. It also left me with a loss of data!

Yesterday, I discovered how much more intuitive everything is than it was… so long ago. 🙂 In the world of technology things keep changing so quickly it feels like everything was… so long ago!

Anyway, by simply falling the prompts, both my laptop and phone are all loaded up, working as if they never crossed the invisible lline separating them from my old devices to the new.

While I was in the Apple store, the sales clerk asked if I wanted them to upload everything to my new phone. I promptly replied, “No thanks. I’m sure I can figure it out.”

Trusting myself to figure it out has its advantages. It says to my brain, “You got this” thus building my confidence naturally in other areas of my life too.

It also let’s me stretch both my ‘trusting myself’ muscles and my trust that I shall not be defeated, nor left behind, by technology.

And it worked. The intuitive nature of today’s operating systems made it easy as baking a cake (or in this case, as easy as making homemade pasta as I did on Sunday. A feat I have not attempted since my daughters were very young! The ravioli I made turned out delicious — and I had a whole lot of fun in the process!)

Todays’ video talks about the enriching of our intuitive natures with time and experience. I hope you enjoy and find something in it to enrich your journey!

And please, do keep sharing your thoughts, experiences, hopes and ideas. In sharing, you enrich my journey and others.

Namaste

(Week 2 – Topic: Unconscious Bias) Episode 7 – Dare Boldly: No Matter Your Age

Week 2: Episode 1 – Unconscious Bias

Posted on August 22, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

The first time I filmed this morning’s video I unconsciously knew there was something not quite right. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.

And then I watched it back and realized — I wasn’t wearing my glasses. Which meant, I was squinting the whole way through it couldn’t really see anything.

A very uncomfortable feeling.

So… I refilmed it with my glasses on.

Felt much more comfortable.

I share this story because having started to use ‘readers’ in my mid 50s, I recently got my first pair of prescription glasses. I had no idea I held an unconscious bias around wearing prescription glasses – the bias has to do with the idea that it’s an admission I’m getting older to need them!

‘Cause here’s the thing. If you have a brain, you have conscious and unconscious biases.

Bias is inherent in our human nature.

Our brains are always seeking feelings of belonging and safety. We believe we’ll be safer in groups of people who look, sound, behave like us. Which leaves us with an unconscious selection process of gravitating towards people… much like us.

When I look at our friends, most of them are white, middle class, have children, have similar interests and lifestyles.

We didn’t set out to create a circle in which we feel like we belong that looks similar to us. We naturally gravitated toward people who reflect ‘us’ and our life circumstances. (Selection bias)

While the many types of biases have a detrimental impact to varying degrees on our lives, ageism and the biases we hold about older people, impact our social, political and environmental practices, policies and ability to embrace aging as a beautifully rich and powerful time of life.

One of the areas of ageism that impacts all of us is the collective fear of what it means to age. We try to hide from it, avoid talking about it and in some cases, do everything we can to defy nature’s natural aging processes.

Being stubborn combined with my nature to persist, in spite of perceived obstacles and hardships on the road, has stood me well in my life.

It’s also created hardship and unnecessary challenges.

Once, in my late 40s, shortly after having an orthoscopy on my right knee, I was standing at the top of a mogul field debating whether to take the black run or the more cruising blue one. As I stood contemplating the mogul run, a 20-something dude went whipping past me, effortlessly zig-zagging his way through the field. “Ha!” my febrile mind declared. “I can do that!” And, without another thought, I pushed off and started down.

Knees limber, body loose, I was crushing it.

Until I hit an icy downside of a mogul, lost an edge, and fell.

On the way down in the Ski Patrol cart, I realized my unconscious bias toward having to prove… I can do anything I set my mind to combined with that stubborn streak of telling myself, no ‘young thing’ is going to outdo me, lead to my fall!

I’d like to say the awareness of that unconscious bias has lead to my awakening, but I still catch myself doing things that defy my body’s capacity to do them because I am also ‘awakened’ to the unconscious bias that says, “I can’t do that. I’m too old.” Am Not! 🙂

See… unconscious biases lead us to befriend those who are like us (or hire them). They lead us to do things, or not, because we think we can do anything we set our minds to, or we can’t do them because we’re too old.

They also mean we limit ourselves in our capacity to explore new and interesting pathways, especially as we grow older, because we believe, somewhere deep inside ourselves, that it’s just not done.

And… just so you know… I’m smiling as I write this because I know I’m not yet clear on what it is I’m thinking or even saying about it.

There’s a part of my that thinks I should scrap this post until I get it ‘right’.

Fact is, the reason I’m doing this is to EXPLORE my thinking, ideas, beliefs. And I can’t do that without being willing to risk being vulnerable, not getting it right, not ‘knowing it all’.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Reading what you write helps deepen my understanding and broaden my perspective.

And I know that is a GOOD THING!

Namaste

My Beautiful, Messy, Masterpiece I Call My Life!

Posted on August 19, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

Bake up something delicious in your life today — my morning scones

When I woke up this morning, I decided to make Lemon, Cranberry Scones.

As I was throwing the flour, baking powder (I don’t use self-rising flour) and sugar into the bowl it struck me how much baking is like life.

We start out with an essential ingredient or two – in life’s case, ourselves, our family of origin and our environment and then move on to add other ingredients to the mix. Like learning to walk, talk, going to school, puberty, and all sorts of things, some organic to our lives, like the aging process such as puberty, menopause. Others, more environmental, or accidents, losses, and circumstances, like where we live, our parents uprooting us and moving to another community, city, country…

And through it all, all those ingredients go into the ‘pot’ we call our life and get all stirred up into this thing we live every day that we call, Our Life.

Sometimes, on the journey of life, ingredients end up in the pot of our living process that simply do not create the right flavour, colour or texture or scent We can throw them out, adapt the recipe, perhaps add a bit of sugar or spice or some other thing to sweeten the pot. In life.

Just as when I bake/cook, I tend to go off script/menu, I’ll take a different path than expected, or add an ingredient/person to the mix to see how that thing/person will gel. Through it all, I am constantly adjusting and adapting. Stirring and combining. Ingredients. People. Environments. Circumstances. Happenings.

And that becomes the thing about aging.

One day, at some unspecified age, we look up from all that beautiful mess in our pot and say, “Wow! Look what I created!”

My wish for you today is that you revel in what you’ve created without judgment. That you don’t focus on your life, no matter your age, as ‘the mess’ but revel and celebrate, ‘My Beautiful Mess” Better yet, “My Beautiful Life.” Or…. if you’re really feeling bold, call it, “My Beautiful Messy Masterpiece I Call MY LIFE!”

Because that’s the thing. Whatever you call it. It is YOUR life. And having a perfect life is just not possible so why not celebrate its beautiful messiness?

In the end, and every day up until the end, only you can determine how well Your Life fits you. And, just like you don’t go into a shoe store and try on the wrong sized shoes again and again, if you don’t like where you’re at today, why not try another way, a different ingredient, an unknown path?- which is my way of saying, if how you’re seeing your life today does not bring you great joy and happiness, how about changing the way you see the mess and focus on what is there amidst all the things you see wrong — great joy, beauty, and worth celebrating.

It’s your mess. Your choice.

This week, I embrace the truth that I can and am falling deeper into love with my life, mess and all, is a daily adventure that grows on me every day!

________________________

Thank you everyone for being part of this journey. Your comments, emails, likes, shares, and presence bring me great joy and happiness!

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For those who are curious…. next week’s theme (as it stands now… 🙂 ) is — what are my unconscious (and conscious) biases around aging? I’m looking forward to an enlivening conversation!

Shine Bright As Bright Can Be

Posted on August 18, 2022 by Louise Gallagher

I have loved the conversations this series has invoked. The wisdom, wit and beauty everyone has shared is not only inspiring, it’s humbling.

Love It! Love all of you for your willingness to dive in and be part of what can sometimes feel like an uncomfortable conversation.

Which is also something I’m learning as I mature and deepen into myself (just like a fine wine! 🙂 ) Uncomfortable conversations are part of deepening relationships, with myself and with those around me.

Uncomfortable conversations invite intimacy.

I didn’t know that when I was younger.

“Back then” (ok, I had to write that phrase it just sounds so… old-fashioned) anyway, once upon a time, I used to avoid uncomfortable conversations like the plague. And now, COVID has taught the whole world we can’t avoid a plague-like event.

It’s a good lesson to learn — what we avoid that is calling to us to be acknowledged, will keep calling until we either willingly take note or run right into it.

For me, there was a time when I thought more about what was ‘wrong’ with me than what I liked about me.

There was a time when I tried to hide my light lest others think I was trying to hog the limelight.

Now I know, negative self-talk limits my true expressions. Not shining my light, as bright as I possibly can, contributes to the darkness all around.

And, I’d rather be in a world where people are shining their light and recognizing their own brilliance, than one where we’re all doing our best to keep our mediocrity in place.

The fact is, we are all magnificent, extraordinary, sources of energy, light, love, joy… and the list goes on.

If I deny my brilliance, I can’t inspire others to share theirs. And if I refuse to shine as bright as bright as bright can be, I’m telling myself to ‘play small’. Don’t make waves. Be complacent.

I am so done with complacency and mediocrity.

I say, Let’s all rise up and be ourselves to the absolute brightest we can be. It’s not about being ‘better than’. It’s all about Being All That I Can, However I Can.

Naturally, my ‘can’ will be different than yours, or theirs, and that’s what makes a world of world of brilliant difference.

For today, I invite you to step into your extraordinary, brilliant nature and be the most brilliant YOU can be! Shine YOUR Brightest. Shine Fearless. Dare Boldly!

And… a special treat today. I asked my sister Anne if I can share this video and she gave me permission.

When Anne turned 70, she decided to walk 70,000 steps in a day. She surpassed her goal on her birthday last year.

Anne is committed to treating her body with care and consideration. And, having fun while she does it. The video was from the deck of their beautiful home on Gabriola Island earlier this week. One of the things I love most about my sister Anne is, she walks through life with childlike wonder, always staying true to herself, living life with gusto every moment of every day!