How I Knew I Needed a Vacation

In 2009 we featured Dr. Carol Orsborn on a Virtual Book Tour right here on the blog. We’ve known each other for years through our work online. But since Carol moved back to L.A. from New York, it’s been a treat to have lunch--no computers or iphones--just old fashioned face to face.

We’re delighted that Carol is our guest blogger today. With many of us about to travel before summer’s end, here are Carol’s recent reflections on her much needed vacation:

My husband Dan and I have been working much harder than we’d ever anticipated to be doing at age 64. And normally, I’m fine with this. But as the vision of a dream retirement–work and stress-free–fades with every down tick of the stock market, I paid heed to my spirit crying out for at least a moment’s taste of freedom. So a week ago, we headed 2 hours east of Los Angeles into the mountains of Big Bear.

As is my habit, I grabbed a spiritual book off my shelf to bring with me, eyes closed. So imagine my delight when it turned out to be poet May Sarton’s “Journal of a Solitude.” Our first morning there, in the summer camp air, it was as if May were writing the words in my own heart, each word a deliverance to sanity just to know that I was not alone in my yearning.

She writes: “For a long time now, every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too much, sense too much, am exhausted by the reverberations after even the simplest conversation. But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate, tormenting, and tormented self. I have written every poem, every novel, for the same purpose—to find out what I think, to know where I stand. I am unable to become what I see. I feel like an inadequate machine, a machine that breaks down at crucial moments, grinds to a dreadful halt, ‘won’t go,’ or, even worse, explodes in some innocent person’s face.”

It was only a 3-day trip, but halfway through day 2, I could already feel my spirit responding to the sight of a mother duck paddling along with her 6 babies, my resilience as well as the meaning of life restored. My encounters with others were delightful. I started journaling again.

I’ve been back a couple of days now, and I’m still walking around with a silly grin on my face, having remembered why it is I do what I do, and having forgiven myself for the gap between vision and reality.

So that’s how I knew how badly I’d needed a vacation. Life transformed from a collision to a celebration. Thanks, Big Bear, for helping me to remember what life is really about.

Readers, if you’ve been able to get away this summer, send a photo and description of your most meaningful moments to Mentors@HerMentorCenter.com We’d love to hear from you.

And thanks Carol, for reminding us of the benefits that can result from making a change. Carol is the founder of FierceWithAge, the Online Center for Spirituality and Aging. I’ve just completed her first virtual online retreat and I want to recommend it to you. Here’s how Carol describes it:

Passing beyond midlife initiates a new life stage. Knowing how determined you are to make the next stage of your life as vital as the decades that have come before, I recommend that you join in beginning August 6 for interactive, self-paced lessons delivered every weekday for three weeks directly to your inbox.

Learn more about the next retreat here. Carol, a wise and sensitive guide, is exploring uncharted territory in the field of aging. She also provides spiritual counseling to those who strive to stop being afraid of age, to instead become fierce with age.

Women, Friendship and Reconnecting

September is National Women's Friendship Month, so take the time to recognize and nurture the friends who play an important role in your life.

Midlife is a great time to reconnect. When you're young, friends help form your identity. As a teenager, with the need for acceptance by peers, your self esteem is impacted by how they see you. Later on, when your family becomes more self sufficient, friends often return to the forefront. And as you plan the next chapter of your life, you can turn to them for guidance and comfort.

Here's an article from the New York Times about the mutual admiration and friendship between tennis champions Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova that grew stronger the more they competed against each other.

Results from a number of research studies support the value of friendship. Having good girlfriends lowers our stress, enhances our moods, protects us from diseases, increases our self confidence and actually even helps bring healing to our bodies.

Whether you exchange emails daily, meet for coffee once a month or spend an annual weekend away, make a concerted effort to spend time together. Grow into the closeness, understanding and trust at the heart of women's friendships - it's one of the best gifts you can give to others as well as yourself.

Log on to the online community for women, Girlfriendology.com, and be inspired to appreciate and celebrate your friendships.

The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife

Today we welcome Donna Henes to our blog so that we can chat about The Queen of My Self, a landmark book that celebrates a new mythic model for the middle years of a woman's life - the Queen! A celebration of the midlife woman in her prime who has achieved wisdom, mastery, and self-esteem, it provides upbeat, practical, and ceremonial inspiration for all women who want to enjoy the fruits of an influential, passionate, and powerful maturity.

NR: Welcome to Nourishing Relationships, Donna. Can you tell our readers something about your professional background and why you wrote The Queen of Myself?

DH: For 35 years I have been an urban shaman, a ceremonialist, a spiritual teacher and counselor, as well as an author and columnist. When I was approaching my 50th birthday, I realized that I needed an archetype to relate to and use as a role model for affirmative aging that just wasn't available anywhere. So I had to create one for myself and the other 60 million Baby Boom women entering their midlife.

NR: You talk about the midlife transition being very difficult for women. Why is this so?

DH: Midlife is all about loss: we lose our reproductive ability, our kids leave, our parents die, we reach our glass ceilings, our marriages founder.

NR: What do you think are women's greatest fears about being middle aged?

DH: Being invisible is a very big one. Another is losing our sex appeal and youthful beauty. It is only a disaster to loose our girlish charms if we deem them to be the exclusive path to beauty, love, and fulfillment. Our allure and sex appeal change with time — increase, even — if we allow them to. A woman is never too old to look and feel beautiful.

NR: The book mentions the Triple Goddess. What is this?

DH: The Triple Goddess is an (out dated) archetype for the three stages of a woman's life: The Maiden, the young girl; The Mother, the fertile care taker; and The Crone, the old, wise one.

NR: You say that this archetype no longer serves women as role models for the life cycle. Why is this?

DH: It leaves out women in their middle years who are long past maidenhood, ending their mothering years and not yet anywhere near being old. 1 out of 3 women in America is over 50 years old. Archetype means "universal." The Triple Goddess cannot be universal if it ignores 1/3 of all women.

NR: So you think you have a better model? Can you describe this?

DH: I added another stage for us women of a certain age: The Queen, the woman who is in charge of her own life and destiny and is out in the world in her power. So then we have a Four-Fold Goddess: The Maiden, The Mother, The Queen, and The Crone.

NR: What, exactly do you mean by Queen?

DH: The Queen is a woman who is still energetic with youth, yet wise with age. She is confident and beholden to no one. She thinks, speaks, acts for her Self and is secure being powerful. She has stepped into her sovereignty and wears it well.

The Queen refuses to condescend or conform to the adolescent and exploitative standard of beauty promulgated by popular culture. She does not deign to compare herself with teenage models or emaciated-lifted-stitched-tucked-injected-Hollywood-uber-beauties. A truly mature, secure woman accepts the inevitable physical changes that come with the passing of time and incorporates them into the way she presents herself to the world. Self-aware, Self-assured, she transforms her Self as she goes. She glows as she grows into her full potential, and becomes ever more becoming. Her reinvigorated attractiveness stems from Self-knowledge and enfranchisement; her magnetic sensuality is centered in the fulfillment and satisfaction of her Self-worth. She exudes the intoxicating appeal of a woman who is at heart, pleased with her Self.

NR: How does a woman go about becoming a Queen?

DH: She must decide and choose to accept the responsibility for her own desires and needs. She establishes boundaries and obeys only her own inner voice. She asserts her Self without guilt or apology.

The Queen uses the power of Her own purpose, growth, and gratification to claim and proclaim what is rightfully Hers, including — especially — Her own Self-image, charisma, and sexuality. When we are comfortable in our own skin, we carry ourselves with presence and pride, and project our formidable inner beauty out for all to see and appreciate.

Our emotional maturity and depth of character make women in our middle years extraordinarily and vitally attractive. We are substantial and robust, heady with the flavor of all that we have seen and done so far. We are pungent with profound experience, with pain and loss, exploration and transformation, glory and joy. The myriad lessons learned from lives intensely lived are reflected in our palate, which has become sophisticated, subtle, firm, and complex. Like fine wine and good cheese, women ripen and improve with age. Our essence becomes stronger, clearer, and infinitely more powerful. What could be more sexy?

NR: What are the benefits to aging?

DH: A liberating sense of Self. A Gallop poll revealed that despite facing the loss of so much on every level, women declare themselves to be the happiest after the age of 55. They might lose the pigment in their hair and the elasticity of their skin, their parents and their children, but they have gained THEMSELVES! This is glorious.

Once the Queen has conquered the challenges in Her life, she begins to claim Her royal power. She cuts through fear and ambivalence to become the sole ruler of Her Self. She has struggled for Her transformation and has achieved it. Her proud potency is palpable, Her authenticity uncontested. Her life now takes on a new ease, a grace, a certain lightness of being born of Her Self-knowing, Self-respecting, Self-directing, Self-projecting passion and purpose. She sails ahead on Her own steam, cutting efficiently through seas that are sometimes smooth as glass, sometimes choppy and fraught with danger. Her age and vast experience is Her ballast. She keeps Her center, come what may.

But something else remarkable takes place once the Queen has stepped into sovereignty. Now that Her own life is in working order and running more smoothly, the Queen can afford to enlarge the territory and expand the horizons of Her Interests and influence and extend the parameters of Her physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual domain. Firmly rooted in Her best Self and acting on Her own behalf, She is free to reach out in ever increasing concentric circles to others. Now She can freely offer Her compassion, expertise, time, and money to people and causes that call to Her sense of response-ability, literally Her ability to respond.

NR: Can you tell us more about response-ability?

DH: Response-ability is the willingness to encounter each person, situation, event, and emotion with an open heart and an open mind, so that we can respond to the needs of others and our own needs with equal care. Born of awareness and consideration, response-ability means choosing to be fully conscious and present in life and to participate conscientiously in its enfoldment.

Maturity brings with it the understanding that everything is not about us. That the world does not revolve around our personal story. That we do not exist in a vacuum. And that all those other people out there actually have lives of their own and are not simply extras in our movie.

Life and living have shown the Queen the value of community, cooperation, concern, care, and communion. Knowing Herself to be an integral, inextricably interconnected part of a greater whole, She multiplies Her ministrations to include the welfare of the entire world around Her.

NR: Do you have any final thoughts for our readers?

DH: If we mighty Queens bring to bear the amazing experience, understanding, and acumen that we have to share, we can, together, restore balance and bring healing to a world that seems bent on destruction.

Personally, I do not think that it is a coincidence that just as the planet teeters on the very brink of destruction, there comes along a generation of fiery, accomplished, clever, ambitious women at the height of our supremacy to whip it back into shape. And the sheer enormity of our numbers means that we can actually achieve the critical mass necessary to make a real and lasting difference.

Let us harness our impressive Empress Energy: our purity of purpose, our passion, our heartfelt compassion, and our enormous power, and let us direct it toward creating a safe, sublime, and peaceful world for us all. The future is in our very capable hands.

NR: Our thanks go out to you, Donna, for sharing your exciting work with us. You've stimulated us all to think about our power and take up the challenge to use it wisely. Now it's time for our readers to have the opportunity to connect with you personally - just click on the "Comment" link below to talk to Donna about what's going on in your "queendom." We'll highlight your questions and Donna's responses here on Friday.

And check our blog tomorrow for information about the launch of Celia Westberry's new book, Eat Yourself Younger Effortlessly.

NABBW TELESEMINAR: Irritable Male Syndrome and Midlife - Rites of Passages for the Men in Your Life

National Association of Baby Boomer Women two-part Teleseminar:

Tuesday May 19, 2009
3:00 PM (EST)

Jed Diamond, PhD

Author of Male Menopause and The Irritable Male Syndrome. With over 40 years as a licensed psychotherapist, Jed Diamond has been a consultant for business executives who want to use the mid-life passage to achieve life-long personal and professional success. He is Director of the www.MenAlive.com, a program that helps men live long and well. Since its inception, Jed has been on the Board of Advisors of the Men's Health Network. He is also a member of the International Society for the Study of the Aging Male and serves as a member of the International Scientific Board of the World Congress on Men's Health.

In this teleseminar, you'll learn:

* The difference between male menopause, a mid-life crisis, and aging.
* The Irritable Male Syndrome - what it is and how to cope.
* Three things mid-life men need to know to stay healthy and live well.
* The Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome: Why midlife men turn mean.
* What is depression and why it's vital to understand it.
* The four key causes of male depression and aggression.
* Suicide: Why it is a predominantly male problem.
* Why men die sooner and live sicker: And what you can do about it.
* How to Bring your irritable man back to life.
* Are men an endangered species?
* Five mistakes women make and ways to get through to a man in denial.

Register for the call by clicking on the title of this post.
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PART II - Questions and Answers will follow
Tuesday May 26, 2009
3:00 PM (EST)

We want to welcome Carolyn Howard-Johnson to our blog today. She is the author of a novel, "This is the Place" and a collection of poetry, "Tracings." Her series of nitty, gritty how-to books include "The Frugal Book Promoter" and "the Frugal Book Editor."

Q: Carolyn, we understand that your writing career didn't begin until mid-life. Looking back, what was it like for women in the 1950's and '60s?

A: Sometimes the big barriers in life aren’t abject poverty, dreaded disease or death. Sometimes it’s the subtle ones set upon us by time and place. The ones that creep up silently on padded feet and, if we sense them at all, we choose not to turn and face them. The decade of the 50s was a time when these kinds of barriers faced those with dark skin, those who lived in closed religious communities, and those who were female.

Living in Utah, I knew that women in that time and place had a notion of who they should be, could be and, mostly, they got it from those around them because many of them couldn’t see the difference from society’s expectations and their own.

“You can’t be a nurse,” my mother said. “Your ankles aren’t sturdy enough.” I also was told I couldn’t be a doctor because that wasn’t a woman’s vocation. The choice left to me was to be a teacher. My dream to write became a victim of the status quo.

When I applied for a job as a writer at Hearst Corporation in New York in 1961 I was required to take a typing test. I was piqued because I wasn’t applying for the typing-pool, I was applying for a post as an editorial assistant.

I was told, "No typing test, no interview." I took the test and was offered a job in the ranks of those who could do 70 in a minute. I had to insist upon the interview I had been promised. I was only twenty and had no real skills in assertiveness. I am amazed I had the wherewithal to do that.

Something similar was at work when I married and had children. I happily left my writing to accommodate my husband’s career and the life the winds of the times presented to me. That there was a time when we didn’t know we had choices is not fiction.

I had always wanted to write the next “Gone with the Wind” only about Utah instead of about the South. I had a plan that was, itself, gone with the wind.

Instead of following my star I searched for replacements. My husband and I built a business. For forty years I didn’t write and, during that time women became more aware. The equipment, gears and pulleys were in place for a different view on life.

Q: Can you tell us about how you dramatically changed directions in the second half of your life in a desire to fulfill your dreams?

A: In midlife I became aware that there was an empty hole where my children had been but also that the hole was vaster than the space vacated by them. I knew I not only would be able to write, I would need to write.

Then I read that, if those who live until they are fifty in these times may very likely see their hundredth year. That meant that I might have another entire lifetime before me--plenty of time to do whatever I wanted. In fact, it’s my belief that women in their 50s might have more time for their second life because they won’t have to spend the first twenty years preparing for adulthood.

That was it. I started writing "This is the Place." I had to relearn old skills and brush up on new, and I am proud that I did it. I’m glad that I waited until I was sixty. Forty years of experience gave it a dimension it would not have had if I had written it when I was young. That first novel has expanded into four books including a new book of poetry, "Tracings" and I am now working on one called "Best Book Forward: How to Edit for a Spotless First Impression." I like that I am doing something for other women and for other writers.

I also like being proof that a new life can start late - or that it is never too late to revive a dream.

Thanks for sharing your story, Carolyn. Although we are new friends, we can see already that you are as generous with your experiences as you are with your wisdom and excellent ideas. What you say resonates for us and we're sure it will for other women as well.

Readers, here's your chance to fire away. You may have questions about Carolyn's mid-life transformation and how you can begin your own process. Or maybe you have a book percolating and want some direction about how to serve it up. All you have to do is click on "comment" at the bottom of this post, type in what you have to say and then follow the simple directions. You do not have to join anything in order to make a comment. We look forward to hearing from you.