Many of you value Carolyn Myss’s groundbreaking work in personal and spiritual development as much as we do, weaving together as she does, studies from Christian mysticism, archetypal psychology, energy medicine and intuition. We will continue to highlight her free media talks, CMED and Wisdom University workshops, as we have here, here, here, and here, as well as listing conferences and other upcoming events in our monthly newsletter.

Specifically, AHP is recognized by the following boards and departments to offer qualifying courses for Continuing Education Credits: California Board of Behavioral Sciences for California, LCSWs and MFTs; National Board for Certified Counselors, for Nationally Certified Counselors; and the California Board of Registered Nursing, for California.

The study showed that single women are as diverse as any other group: about half the women in the study said they are happier than they’ve ever been. Some lose sleep over the economic challenges of being single, but that doesn’t stop the majority of them from believing that midlife offers an opportunity for growth, for learning, and the chance to do the things they’ve always wanted to do. On study author says that “many single women are living lives of secret contentment.”

Here’s the gist of the myths, some supported, others debunked. Go the site for a fuller description.
Myth #1 All single women are desperate to find a mate.
Reality: Open to a nice relationship? You betcha. But obsessed with finding a partner? Hardly. 31% of single women 40 – 69 are in an exclusive relationship, and another 32% date non-exclusively, wile a surprising number couldn’t care less.

Myth #2 Single women are lonely.
Reality: Everyone is lonely sometimes—even married people. But most single women actually enjoy their solitude. Slightly more single women than their married sisters said they felt their independence was important to their quality of life. They love the freedom.

Myth #3 Older women are clueless about finances and don’t know how to invest.
Reality: Women are more timid investors than men are, but they’re the opposite of clueless and actually make fewer investing mistakes than men do. Women are also more likely than men to rely on advice from finance professionals… they seek information. “But just because single women know something intellectually, it doesn’t mean it’s easy for them emotionally.”

Myth #4 Unlike their female counterparts who were born before the women’s movement, baby-boomer career women have it made financially.
Reality: Many single women—particularly those under age 60—carry dangerously high levels of debt.
It’s not ignorance, manage big corporate budgets. “They work hard and like to spend, trading immediate gratification for long-term planning.”

Myth #5 Retirement is a time for single women to slow down and get a few more cats.
Reality: Often it’s an exciting chance for reinvention.
In terms of happy-right-now measurements, single women, overall, don’t fare as well as those with a partner. But attitudes are changing as mature unmarried women are starting to build a culture all their own as they realize how much time they have to create a meaningful life.

Myth #6 When it comes to their appearance, older single women say “the heck with it.”
Reality: To the contrary, women without partners are keenly aware that appearances matter in our society, but most don’t go to extremes to look younger, though single women do pay more attention to appearance, as in the dating world physical appearance is always important.

Myth #7: A single woman’s worst fear is that she’ll wind up old, sick, and alone.
Reality: While winding up alone later in life is increasingly likely for all women, it’s not something single women lose sleep over. 81% aren’t overly concerned about growing old alone. Some see being single as protecting them from the heartbreaking ordeal of caring for a sick husband.

Myth #8 The older they get, the more single women regret the lack of family ties.
Reality: Unmarried women have strong family relationships, and many have stronger social support systems than married women do of friends, colleagues, neighbors, and other people..”Community really means a lot and gives them geographical stability.

Myth #9 Single women are sex-starved.
Reality: It’s variable, while most women have a greater appetite for other forms of sustenance in their lives. Whether sexually active or not, they aren’t hung up about it, yet those who are, are more sexually adventurous and easygoing, and more willing to take pleasure when it comes.

Myth #10 Single women aren’t as healthy as married women.
Reality: This is hard to say as there is little data, yet 46% say their health is excellent or very good, while 90% feel very or somewhat confident that they’re doing all they can to stay healthy.

As a veteran global fund-raiser for the Hunger Project, consultant to the Nobel Women’s Initiative to leverage the influence of women Nobel Peace Laureates to advance peace, justice, and equality, and as a trustee of the Fetzer Institute, whose mission is to foster awareness of love and forgiveness and the power of letting go, Lynne Twist has long observed how our relationship to money governs, dominates, and stresses each of our lives.  Her Soul of Money Institute is dedicated to helping people  find peace and sufficiency in their relationship with money.  The video excerpt (below) provides an empowering perspective on how to see what’s unraveling all around us:  “We’re living in a time when the economic system, the money system itself, the markets are unraveling …. It’s  is a very frightening time … {but it’s important to} recognize that what is unraveling is that which has no viability. What is unraveling is that which is not sustainable. … If we can see that what’s happening is a truing, is a recalibration, it helps us see how to deal with it on a personal basis.  It’s a difficult time…{and}  it can also be a beautiful time.  Because  … we can move towards thrift rather than accumulation; we can move toward appreciating what we love rather than being afraid of what we’ve lost. We can focus our attention and intention not on what we’re losing, but on what we already have that’s so valuable and nourishing to us. And we can stop clamoring for more of what we don’t really need and take care of what we have.”

For more on Lynne Twist’s perspective on the origins and purpose of money and the source of our upset about it, as well as her Unleashing the Soul of Money: Finding Sufficiency, Freedom and Purpose and Through Your Relationship with Money audio workshop, click here.

The course takes you through a: chakra-by-chakra self-diagnosis, and healing with imagery, to the scientific evidence from medicine and physics, how our past lives affect our present health, and decoding archetypal information. You also learn to:

* Develop an intuitive rapport not just with your body but with your entire life
* Work with archetypes, imagery, and symbols—the language of the psyche
* Use “spiritual alchemy” to engage your struggles as a source of transformation and wisdom
* See how your personal history gets encoded in your chakras
* Focus on the higher powers of your own “jewel of potential”—the seventh chakra
* Cleanse and “rewire” your own energy system
* Control—or even reverse – the single cause of 75% of all illness in two 20-minute sessions a day

From time to time, many of us tend to experience an occasional insight. An insight is simply the ability to change our filter and look at things differently. In moments of insight, there’s a sudden burst of clarity where there had previously been static; there is an epiphany of movement. It’s the a-ha moment. When we are firmly entrenched in our beliefs and rooted in our certainty, we’re not typically open to insights. To have an insight we need to temporarily suspend our beliefs and open to new possibilities. We’re not so much working on the insight as we are creating the groundwork for it to come forth. In other words, we’re getting out of our own way, and opening to new considerations. Without insights we’re shackled to a fixed and stagnating reality in which little changes. It tends to look as if life is just replaying itself, day in and day out.

Today’s insight becomes tomorrow’s faded memory

The more that we move out of old, habitual patterns of belief and thought, the more inclined we are to have insights. My work as a therapist is highly motivated toward catalyzing insights. Insights are the initiators of change, but only if we pay homage to them. Although enlightening for a brief period, insights tend to fade and wither over time. Today’s insight becomes tomorrow’s faded memory. That is precisely why we struggle with change and stay stuck in the old groove.

I believe that insights are the forerunners of our growth and personal evolution. But only if we treat them with the value they deserve. If we diminish an important breakthrough, we’re devaluing ourselves. If we don’t take the new thinking and highlight it as a guide to our self-actualization, we are impeding new learning and growth. We’re simply not taking ourselves seriously enough.

What is a defining moment?

In my personal life and in my work, strongly believe in making a commitment to insight. A commitment to insight might sound like, “My life is changed because of this insight. I am committed to this change, as of this moment.” Although this might sound awkward and perhaps corny, it is actually the foundation for an increasing self-esteem. When we make a commitment to an insight, I refer to that as a defining moment.

Defining moments occur when we direct our lives onto a new pathway, borne of an illuminating insight and an expanded awareness. Defining moments stand out in singularity and literally redefine our lives. This process moves us from the mental breakthrough of the moment into a state of action. Sustaining the defining moment requires a foundational shift in our lives. There is ordinarily a state of inertia at work, whereby we tend to slip back into the familiar zone. Therefore, making a commitment is truly essential to maintaining the change.

If you can’t identify defining moments in your life, you’ve likely lived by the rules of conformity and have been influenced by fear. Defining moments speak to the deeper underlying questions and struggles of our lives. When we react in habitual and formatted ways, we don’t penetrate beneath the surface of our existence. Fear and anxiety typically corral us into this formatted type of thinking and behavior, whereby we’re in a reactive mode, not quite operating from the deepening awareness that insight can evoke.

Defining moments are those in which we take full authorship of the script of our lives. Creating the defining moment is achieved by shifting the insight to the foreground of your attention and illuminating it with full intention. The deepening experience of awareness and presence enables the profound shift into the realm of defining moments. Defining moments are the peak experiences of our lives when we come to recognize them as such.

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Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist, author, educator and founder of the Emergent Thinking® process which enables people to transcend their struggles with today’s challenges. He introduces and integrates many discoveries of the emerging sciences, synergizing them into a practical protocol to catalyze change.

]]> http://www.aheadofthecurveatmidlife.com/2010/02/28/defining-moments/feed/ 0 http://www.aheadofthecurveatmidlife.com/2010/02/26/letting-go-ritual/ http://www.aheadofthecurveatmidlife.com/2010/02/26/letting-go-ritual/#comments Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:11:41 +0000 Kathleen Daniel http://www.aheadofthecurveatmidlife.com/?p=7795 While you’re reviewing your intentions for the year and deciding what you want to let go of and what you want to take with you this year, releasing a hurt, thought, injury or old issue may well be on your agenda. Use this simple process as a tool to help you. A ritual is a series of focused actions taken with a specific goal in mind. Use this process to analyze, specify and release a hurt, thought, injury or issue in your life. Part of the extensive site of the Love and Forgiveness campaign by the Fetzer Institute, its series of beautiful panels set to music takes you through a powerful ritual of focused questions and thoughts with the goal of helping you to let go and forgive. Leave the past in the past and free more of your energy to help shape an open future of possibility.

But her later description of “wants” seems to skim the surface, overlooking deep desires that we have that are based on driving values rather than on the simple pain-pleasure principle she suggests.

What about those hard, active choices we are sometimes called to make? What about wants that are based on authentic values, i.e. those that point to passions that motivate us to fulfill a deeper kind of purpose? For people in midlife, it’s very possible that choices that were authentic in an earlier stage of life are no longer the leading forces in our nature. Healing happens. People learn. Life changes, as does our understanding of ourselves, life and the limits – and possibilities – of both.

Yes, to the necessity of accepting ‘settling’ for what we now have as perhaps exactly the deeper level of self-acceptance we need to follow as the next growing edge of our lives. But what about when ‘settling’ is settling for a past that no longer feeds what’s emergent in our lives as we perceive it, and want it? It’s certainly ideal when we can create bridges in all areas of our lives, bringing the present and past forward towards a new future direction of our choosing. But sometimes it happens that you are both grateful for your life AND it’s time to leave some things behind.

What do you think?

It’s not coincidental that, instead of celebrating the new year a week after the winter solstice, the Chinese calendar falls nearer to the spring equinox, when life underground begins to stir. Western cultures prefer to bypass the limits that winter rest represents, interfering as it does with lives based on continual growth. But continual activity loses its footing when it’s not rooted in periods of reflection and integration. And winter isn’t empty rest, it’s teeming with life under the surface.

As a long-time and unrepentant holistic thinker, I have always found sanity and intuitive common sense in wisdom traditions that emphasize seeing ourselves as natural creatures influenced by changes in the annual cycling of the seasons. Life is change, and change is stressful, correlated with accelerated aging and increased incidence of every type of chronic illness. Reflecting on the meaning of the Tao, meaning the Way, provides a frame for living in balance by taking our cue from observing nature.

The activity of rest

Taoist thought equates winter with the time of deepest yin, of the activity of rest, if you will. Contrasted with on-fire outgoing yang of high summer as its polar opposite, yin’s action is receptivity, actively taking the time to tune in after a full and creative year, to listen to how we feel, now, in our lives. Winter isn’t so much about creating resolutions – yet – that’s putting the cart before the horse – but more about creating internal order, aligning with what’s emerging, and gathering the resolve to bring it into being come spring. As you might imagine, getting this backwards, that is, strengthening your resolve before making resolutions, will save you a lot of energy expended on half-baked plans, and time spent going after things that it turns out you didn’t want after all.

So how do you be receptive? Taking our cue again from nature, winter is likened to water in the way it flows around and wears down obstacles in its path. Water seeks its own level and flows towards its destination propelled and bounded by banks that prevent it from dissipating its force in aimless meandering.

Among the things we can learn, and ask ourselves, are

* What have I learned about my limits?
* What direction is the river of my life flowing?
* Is this the direction I want to be going?
* Can I support what I need to do with the resources I have?
* What boundaries do I need to have in place so I don’t get distracted?
* If I want to shift direction, what actions will I need to take?

Taking the time to re-root yourself in what’s deepest and most potent in your nature has payoffs besides keeping your clear, oriented and focused. It preserves your energy. It strengthens your will. It strengthens access to your intuition, as well as to synchronicities, so you’ll be alert for them when they arise to guide your path. And tuning into yourself brings deep peace.

The rest of the story ….

Perhaps not surprisingly, the emotion associated with winter is fear. Sometimes, if you’ve been too busy to check in with yourself for a while, you may become acutely aware of a torrent of negative self-talk or chatter without discernible center or direction. Where is this underground stream of insight and comfort, you ask?

You actually feel stripped bare, like branches silhouetted against the winter sky. You”re frozen, paralyzed, rather than flowing and your first impulse is to keep moving! You may mistake this for depression or worse, as useless. True, some of your ‘symptoms’ can be likened to SAD, seasonal affect disorder, and strategies (like light boxes) are useful. You should do what you can to keep your physiology balanced. But the fact is that it can be hard, and sad, to face disappointment, failure or missed opportunity. Those are the facts of the matter.

If that’s true for you, the best strategy is to let them be. Take your cue from winter: Be still. Learn to observe the contents of your mind and emotions. Let them blanket you like a quiet cover of snow, and know that they are just emotions, they aren’t the totality of who you are. Let go of struggle. Let yourself be sad, angry, disappointed, frightened, empty, alone, or …fill in the blank. Keep breathing, crack a lopsided grin, shed a tear, or wince if you must, and let your breath remind you of the transience of thought and feeling.

Yes, water can harden into ice. But the opposite of fear is courage. Facing your deepest fears of inadequacy or emptiness builds courage. Other payoffs, ones that gives back in buckets, are increased self-esteem, calm, deepened wisdom, and increased ability with time, to flow without fear with whatever comes your way. Know that what emerges from this steaming compost heap, come spring, will be little sprouts of naturally inspired creative solutions, directions, and actions that will surprise and inspire your life.

Balancing receptivity and action – 5 steps to setting your intention

In case you have the mistaken impression that winter’s emotional weather is simply a detour into passivity, strengthening your resolve means turning your insights into intentions. Briefly, there are five very focused steps to setting your intention. Do them each and you’ll naturally produce what you intend.

1. Get clear about what it is you want. Be specific. Write it down – as what you want – not what you don’t want

2. Envision in fine detail, using all your senses, how you will feel and what you will have once you’ve accomplished that intention

3. Share your intention with someone in a way that will supportively hold you accountable to taking action

4. Do something today to demonstrate your commitment to your intention, even if only a baby step

5. Acknowledge that you did what you said you would and then, take the next step. And then the next…