What is Truly Important to You?
It’s all right in front of us.
Aging is a process that we can either fear or embrace. Let’s face it. What choice do we have! I use to live in fear of so many things, something happening to my kids, or my husband, being homeless, a serious illness, rejection, humiliation, looking stupid, being social inept, failure, the list is endless. For a time when I just began to wake up to the fact that I was “aging”, and I traveled the path beside my parents as they lived out their last days, I lay awake nights in utter terror of the future. Until I came to my senses.
It wasn’t an overnight occurrence. Trust me. For me it was a seemingly long, arduous process but worth every tear I shed and every panic attack I survived. It’s different for everyone. It probably depends in part how much fear you were taught as a small child, how much confidence in your self that you have been able to develop over the years. Regardless of the details, choosing not to live in fear and choosing to embrace the aging process for all the gifts it has to give is a choice.
I have come to view the inherent beauty of aging. It is a gift that offers us every ingredient we need to take major steps in our transformational journey toward healing and wholeness – toward self-actualization and consciousness. We have the opportunity to lay aside our fears and get down to brass tacks. What is truly important in life? What is truly important in my life? What do I really value? What are my gifts? What do I believe about the “something more” in life? Do I live what I believe? Have I made a difference? Can I do more? Can I be more? Is what is going on inside of me congruent with my words and actions?
Aging is a time when we can get right with ourselves and the universe, however we perceive it. We can choose to really walk our talk. When we do this, there is no fear. There may be a residual, habitual murmur that stirs occasionally, but it doesn’t have the power to control or dissuade us from what we know in our hearts to be true.
The journey toward wholeness, toward conscious living is the transformational journey, because when we seek to know ourselves, to truly and deeply know ourselves we will be transformed. I guarantee it. It is also a journey that is taken one step at a time, one minute at a time, one day at a time and it continues on indefinitely, ever learning and fine tuning.
Are you embracing the aging process? Are you allowing it to transform you, instead of you it? Are you opening your heart and mind to the process? What are your stumbling blocks? What is blocking your path? What is keeping you stuck?
MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Aging Abundantly | Women Over Fifty | Empty Nesters | Caregivers | Aging Gracefully 
When we become a certain age, and it may be different for different people, we enter the time of wisdom. We know time is running out and need to get our lives together if we are going to consider ourselves to have lived an authentic life. The things we considered important when we were younger get left in the dust and we realize that perhaps we haven’t been living at all. We’ve just been letting time pass.
What we do when we begin aging is just what we did when we waited until the last minute to write a paper when we were in school. We move forward, pick up the pieces, and finish our work. But this time it’s about really living.
Love your comment, Jz. Thank you.
Perfect! Love it! Thanks JZ.
You stated are you embracing the againg process? JUst what does that mean? I guess I am one of the ones going through this transformation now and for some time. So many changes have occurred in my life in the last 2-3 years that I am having difficulty understanding who I am and what my purpose is. My parents dies, after years of caregiving and my grandchildren married and moved away. Discord came in division between two of my daughters and now I feel as if my role as mother and grandmother has totally changed. My husband retired, not of his will, but because of lack of work in his field..So I am trying to figure out who I am now and where do I fit in this new life of mine. Any suggestions? Love to read your posts they are always inspiring.
Oh, yes! All the change and upheaval you have experienced is no doubt very frightening. I know exactly how you feel (well, given that I’m not you!). I experienced many of the same things. Life changes at a terrifying speed at midlife. Everything we thought we knew about who we are suddenly comes crashing in around us. The very first thing to do is, to the best of your ability, to take a step back from all that is happening and notice that first, you are still standing. You are still you – even if you don’t know exactly what that looks like just yet. The second thing is to realize that you are in the process of growth and change, just like the seasons, one ends and another begins. Just as who you were is ending, who you are becoming is just beginning. That’s the exciting part! It’s an opportunity to do and think differently than you have ever thought and done before. There are ups and downs along the way, but step by step you can create a new life that may even be more to your liking than what went before. For me, embracing the process is trying not to stress about the change, trying not to spend my time and energy mourning over the past or worrying about the future, trying to live in the moment and follow my heart as I go. I’m glad you find my posts helpful. Perhaps I will address your concerns in more detail in a future post! Thank you for taking the time to leave your comment and question. It helps me to know what you are thinking and feeling. It helps me to help you! Dorothy
Thank you so much Dorothy for responding. You are so right it is a time to think and do differently, but with that change comes apprehension and the “unknown”. As we all know the familiar is much easier than the unknown. I have always been open to change but it seems that what I expected of this time of life is totally different than what it is. I’m sure you are right, that I need to embrace it, but that is not always easy. Trusting that the future will be better is what I always believed but somehow at this stage of life that trust is harder to come by. Thanks again for your response, as always you have given me much to think about and work on.
I think aging is scary for everyone. Sometimes we may not feel as though we are our age, yet if not from the mirror itself, we notice change all around us with the growth of children and new world developments. We are reminded of the passing years. I know it’s still hard for me to digest I’m in my fifties and shake my head every time I say the number. My favorite question is “What happened to twenty-five?” Wasn’t I just that? We question, where the years have gone and in efforts to ‘beat the clock’ I find myself trying to squeeze in all of life’s pleasures for fear that it can be snatched from me at a moment’s notice.