Plays Well With Others

Women enjoy a tremendous capacity to share stories and connect at a deep level.  This scene of three 55+ women making magic out of a creative mess tells a thousand words.  Making time to get into your own zone, surrounded by supportive friends, gives your soul a boost.  Based on Keri Smith's book, Living Out Loud:  Activities to Fuel a Creative Life we crafted 'magic pocket shrines.'  See photo above.

Liminal Beauty

Despite a spate of recent stories about aging beauties, once women turn 55 they are off the radar of prime advertisements.  Maybe marketers are smart enough to know that aging women trust their inner voices above all else.  Whereas once we listened to what the world told us about being beautiful, now we celebrate our hard-won individuality.  We chuckle at our earlier efforts to achieve a certain look, and understand it was a necessary rite of passage.  Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, in Women Who Run with the Wolves, shares that for many women, age 55+ heralds an age of 'choosing one's world and the work yet to be done.' Now that's a thing of beauty.

All that glitters ...

Hans Christian Anderson's story of 'The Red Shoes' has been retold and turned into ballets and films.  Why so popular?  Like all timeless tales, we recognize some of ourselves in the vain little girl who trades her home-made shoes for fancy.  In a Magyar-Germanic version recounted in Women Who Run With the Wolves, a motherless girl is rescued by a souless old woman who tries to put her in a gilded cage.  Things do not turn out well.  She would have been better off traversing through the woods wearing her perfectly functional hand-fashioned shoes.

Most entrepreneurial women find themselves longing to be rescued at some point.  Even Gloria Steinem stayed too long with a wrong guy because he offered a more superficial life.  A better approach can be to take a rest not too far from our path; to resume our passionate, innovative lives after catching our breaths. 

When Joseph Campbell bellowed "follow your bliss", he did not say it would be easy.  Actually, it makes you the heroine of your own story.  When you are considering being rescued by a more secure job, or a relationship that  promises to take responsibilites off your shoulder, give yourself permission to mull things over in a protected space.  As Dr. E's Aunt Tereza warned:  "Look at your shoes and be thankful they are plain ... for one has to live very carefully if one's shoes are too red."

Find.Your.Pack.

Dr. Bernie Siegel, CT's unique contribution to the world of healing, warned us in a seminar:  'Don't be afraid to be a character.  Be your authentic self, not the diseased kidney in room 525'.  One of my  take-aways from his four-part series was that conforming can be hazardous to your health. ( Visit Bernie's site at www.berniesiegelmd.com.  for further inspiration.)

Rex Huppke, in his Hartford Courant column I Just Work Here, advised "Go ahead -- be weird at work." (7/23/12)  He cited Seth Godin, author of "We Are All Weird" as one  expert who also warns that conformity can hold you back at work.  Always saying and doing what you think other people want does not help companies grow.

John Gardner, renowned educator and policy-maker, famously warned that 'we must guard against bureaucracies becoming prisoners of their own procedures.' I think of it as infrastructure arthritis.

So, with a plethora of thought-leaders giving us permission to 'be who we are' -- how do we survive the slings and arrows that gatekeepers use to keep things the way they are?  No one says it is easy to fight the current of conventional thinking,  but we do want to get to the other side in one piece.  One mantra is that 'confidence comes from experience - and experience comes from know-how.'  So know of what you speak.

Building on Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book, Women Who Run the Wolves, I say find your pack.  Even if you can swim like a duck, but are really a swan, you need to move on.  If you are 25 and earning great money but are being held captive in a cubicle guarded by a scolding witch, explore your options, but know that you must move on.  If you are a late-blooming social worker who needs clinical hours to complete your certification, but are confined to pseudo-professional tasks, move on.  Share your goals with trusted souls and move on.   Life is short.  Respectfully request that others move to the side as you kick a door open to your best work.

Momma Said ...

'Balancing' work and motherhood is all in the news, with the 37-yr old CEO of Yahoo! pregnant for the first time, and the Atlantic article about 'Having It All - not!'  My view?  As a first-time mother at 37, with the biggest job of my life, my worlds collided.  Even though I grew up with a working mom, and she was now taking care of my daughter, and I had plenty of money for other services, and a husband who cooked, and strong organizational skills ... it took six years, but at 44 I said "there has to be another way."  Motherhood is not the only reason I left corporate for independent consulting, but it sure helped me take that proverbial step off the cliff.  Maria Shriver's mom told her 'you can do it all, just not all at the same time.'  My (less famous, but equally wise) mom said 'your world is going to change 180 degrees.'  I think when it comes to bringing up baby, it's still a man's world.  And maybe that's a good thing -- in the end, they miss out on so much.