Am pondering & pondering ways to get my grannie clients & other older friends to believe me when I say their life stories - especially the ones they consider "little" - have great value to the youngers in their life & in the world.
What strikes me most is how deeply too many of my older friends see their lives as drawing meaning only from how others see them. One of my great & exciting challenges is helping them see that life is not about them & others, but about their individual self in the light of whatever Divine they acknowledge.
Our relationship to others - all others, from family to the cashier at the local supermarket - is a tool for developing a deeper, richer sense of self. Which is not selfish!
To me, self centered (no hyphen) is a positive description, denoting being centered in our self, rather than in others (never good). I can remember exactly where I was when that first dawned on me. My sister-in-law & I were doing shopping for one of the parties before my wedding. We were talking about family & she was remembering how she & Dad (gone for many years) often butted heads. She was particularly incensed that he described her as self-centered.
"Ahhh," I answered "To me, that would not be an insult. And Dad was right - you are." As she reared back but before she could let loose, I continued. "You have always been a role model for me. You have a strong sense of your true self, of what is important to you & what is not, and you act on it. THAT, to me, is what can be meant by "self-centered."
She paused, looked me straight in the eye, as she replied, "I'd never thought of it that way. I still don't think it's how Dad intended it, but I am touched that it's how you do."
One of the great things that olders are called to do as they inch up into significant old age is to gain a deeper sense of their individuality, separate from responsibilities to work or friends, family or spouse. It is one of the great purposes of older age, yet seems to be overlooked. When I bring it up, it's typically discounted.
I've written about this before & am sure that I will write about it many times more - my own mother was 87 or 88 when she first turned to a trusted & gifted psychologist for help in getting to know her own true self. I doubt she could have reached out any earlier in her life. To her frankly shocked surprise, having things stripped away was painful, but illuminating, even liberating.
As she wrote around that time, as it was happening, the worst thing she could imagine - children intentionally distancing themselves - happened because of something she did that was solely in her own best interests. To quote her, "The worst thing possible happened, and I didn't die."
Could she have taken such a difficult action in her younger years? It's doubtful. It's possible she could had to be way up there in age, with it's possibility of seeing life's greater panorama, to see the wider broader deeper perspective that can be one of the great gifts of significantly older age.
Mom discovered that there is great power in the perplexities & perspective in being an "ancient." She used it in enduring ways & discovered that in recognizing & embracing her own true self helped her see the same in others, all others, far more clearly than before.
Helping olders & all others to see being truly self centered as a good, downright essential thing - quite the task! And what fabulous rewards when, like Mom did, they finally start to get an inkling of & grounding in their own true self!
Which leads my thinking to another ponder - the importance of olders coming to that realization on their own, in their own way & time, even if they never get it. Another posting percolating in my brain!!
No comments:
Post a Comment