February 26th, 2007
A Whole New Midlife Mind
What do you think the life experience would look like of a woman whose thinking was focused on the societal norms of aging and decline? What do you think the life experience would be like of the woman whose thinking and actions where that of awareness and proactive behaviors?
My guess is that in order to approach this new stage in our life that we must be flexible, and open to new ways of living and doing things and accurate information. We can benefit by using creativity to deal with changes and to make optimal choices for each of us as individuals and also for women as a whole. I am not saying that all the predicted occurrences that can happen in midlife can be wished away, or we can be in denial around these concerns.
What I believe is that our expectations do help to determine our outcomes, and by substituting our old thoughts around the changes that may take place in midlife, with different thoughts, we can have much more satisfaction and fulfillment instead of feeling victimized by old ways of thinking and being. A place to start is that the idea of “normal” does not have to apply to you. When you take the steps to move beyond the idea of normal and to think about how you can deal with it flexibly and creatively, you are at the forefront to change past mores of thinking and enter life with a whole new mind.
Just changing some small habits can actually help in the start of the process of rewiring our brains. It could be as small as eating your salad last instead of first, holding the phone on the other ear, go to work via a different route. You could try checking your email at a different time of day. Or, if you check email constantly, put yourself on a schedule of checking it at specific times only. Make a list of ten things that you do routinely. For a week or two let go of the old ways of doing these things and open up to new and creative ways. Are you ready to rewire?
Until next month,
Lorraine
