So, what have I learned over two months? A LOT

It's been two months - to the day - since Jane Kerschner, my insightful inspiring empowering well-being coach, and I agreed to a two month hiatus in our direct work.  I'd realized that the gut-essential work that bellowed to be done had nothing directly to do with her.  And everything.  While the work wasn't in her field, the only reason it could present itself as a crying-out need was because she'd helped make a space for it to climb out of its hidey-hole.

So, were the two months well spent? 

Oh my gosh - YES!

And some of my most essential aha moments only arrived this past weekend, this morning!

Working backward, starting with this morning:

Over the past couple months, Monday morning's developed into a productive pattern - John & I hit the Pennypack Trail for an early morning walk, then we're off to have breakfast with an older friend, head to Barnes & Noble/Willow Grove after saying our farewells, then we have lunch at a favorite Chinese restaurant (with left overs for supper!).  Going to B&N is an opportunity for interesting publications to catch my eye/attention.  

Keep an eye out for a blog posting inspired by Scientific American Mind's  How to Raise a Happy Child, a special edition on parenting;  imagine a special edition, How to Appreciate Fabulous Elders!  Tweaking the titles, it could include articles on Tapping Into The Wisdom Of Our Elders, Mental Exercises to Enlarge Older Minds, Encouraging Lifelong Learning, Ways to Ease an Oldster's Stress, Unstructured Play -  Essential to Elderly Health, Dementia & Early Intervention With Social Support, Overcoming Loss Of The Old Normal, Networking Oldsters With Digital Media....


During breakfast, it struck me that it's the LACK of experience John & I have with daunting difficulties typical with aged parents - both our mothers were relatively medical-crisis free, considering their ages, and sharp as tacks to the last - that helps us see things that friends & families engulfed in it all might easily miss or dismiss or resist.  

What we can dispassionately observe, to them consumes so much of their time energies life.

As I explained to our friend over eggs & hashed browns, John & I are duds at traditional personal care.  Mom Murphy died without warning of a massive heart attack, in the home where she'd lived since 1941; my Mom died in her own room in her own home.  Neither John nor I helped them with  meds, never kept a vigilant eye on what they ate, never had to compensate for hearing or vision loss, both were sharp as tacks to the very end.  

Maybe a good description for what we provide would be party care, celebration services that engage energize empower.

As usual, I got up way before John, so had time to read Brene Brown's Daring Greatly.   (A Daring Way facilitator should develop it into a workshop for older folks.)   Her subtitle says it all about the challenges faced by even the most upbeat oldster elder ancient - - How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.  

The word that jumped out most at me was PARENT.  People with children are always & forever a parent, but how do we do it when once-babies, toddlers & teens are parents & grandparents?  My own mother found that tough before realizing she was still responsible for providing her children with life lessons, although not in the same ways as when they were young.  


Okay, so all of the above is what I learned just this morning!  Each touches on at least one thing uncovered discovered learned over the two months:

• Two things that mess up my best intentions are distraction & comparison.

• Over the past 15 years, I've made incredible strides in a lot of areas, but remain relatively clueless about HOW to take a project from inspired idea to completion.  

• I've made a lot of gains in developing a more effective work & home culture, but have a long ways to go.  It's okay - essential - to ask for help to counteract them messed up ideas that still lurk in my head.

• "Culture will eat strategy for breakfast."  - Peter Drucker -

• Reach out - I asked an older pleasant acquaintance if it would be okay to stop by for a chat.  Her name just came to me, out of the blue.  Now, we spend at least one hour every Friday, gabbing & splitting a raspberry or key lime tart from Be Well Bakery.  She enjoys the company & I am so enriched with her life perspective.  I write letters, which I once talked about but never quite got around to.  I am planning on visiting my niece & her family next year - in Australia!

• Working up nerve to seek out mentors & hire tutors.  Hard to ask. 

• The Computer Studio looks great!  John renamed it The Retreat.

• Creative ideas was wonderful uplifting energizing.  But proposed projects are meaningless unless they end in an actual product.

• For every person I envision having their act together far better than I, there's at one that thinks the same thing about me.

• Every day, I get to wake up & know that the day stretching before me is going to be incredible - never lose sight of what a blessing that is!

• Time & I have moved our relationship past "it's complicated" to one of greater partnership, even friends.

• More open to being able "to visualize the unbuilt."

• Allowing myself to see the similarities between myself & people with qualities I admire, seek to emulate.

• If I add a project, team it with a realistic complete date, then either remove one ~or~  adjust deadlines to keep them on track to complete.

• Developed an empowered response to the word GOAL.

• Recognize that I bring a seriously unique combination of gifts & graces, strengths & experiences to what beckons - they were given with a reason, a purpose that pushes to BE.

• Added a new word to my dictionary - BRUTIFUL.

• Accept that I can be there for my brother, Peter, in spite of our family history, because John is always present, is a huge support in wholeheartedly supporting PRL.

• That the behaviors Brene Brown describes as antithetical to wholehearted living were the very ones my core family considered normal.

• My family culture retains a hold on me, but WAY less than on 04/27/16.

• Rather than get myself all twisted trying to understand why part of Mom always seemed afraid of me, why Mim never seemed safe with me, will accept them as a really badly written mystery with a totally unsatisfying ending.

• John & I sought professional counseling because of how differently we process stuff.  Found a method (for me) to accept differences as fundamental, to experience them as the way things are (rather than as danger threat attack).

• Three things I intend to complete before 12/31/16 are Cyber Access for the Technically Timid (CATT) & Values Vision Dreams.

• Over & over, experienced the just-right thing showing up in my life at the just-right moment in the just-right way. (My thanks to The Universe for its endless support & astonishing generosity!)

• My church's Small Group movers & doers are AVAILABLE to help me figure out well-grounded steps to turning small group dreams into reality.

• Get my personal/professional culture in sync with my values & I will be  equipped to live a life in alignment with my true self.

Sheez - that's a lot over a relatively short time!  Glad - thanks to Jane - that I realized there were big issues that needed attention before my attention could be turned onward & upward.

Great things await doing.  Things only I can do in a particular way.  Jane & so many others are my partners in doin' the wonderful!
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