One of the most wonderful – and undervalued – aspects of growing older is the power to focus more clearly on what’s important to us and what we want yet to accomplish. We can begin by concentrating our energy and abilities toward reaching the goals we hold most dear, dipping into our mental/spiritual “bucket list,” so to speak. How does that process work?

A clear focus doesn’t usually happen magically, however, often requiring conscious thought and deliberation. Here’s one approach you can try (have a pencil and highlighter handy).

First, take a sheet of paper and write your gut responses to the statement: While I’m still able, I want to ___________. Try to jot down fifteen or twenty items.

Second, go down the list item by item, asking yourself: “Would I be sorry if I never did this one?” If your answer is, “No, I wouldn’t be sorry,” draw a line through it, because it’s not really a priority in your life. It’s okay—even necessary— to let some of your long-held goals or possibilities go.

Here’s the crucial third step. Again go down the list, asking, “If I knew I were to die next week, I would most regret not doing __________. Highlight the ones that would cause you regret later if left undone. These are your top priorities. You might categorize what you’ve done as:

• Essential (highlighted); I’ll do this first.
• Nice to do, but won’t cause regret (neither highlighted nor crossed off); I’ll do this if I have time.
• Skip it; not a priority (crossed off); I choose to let it go and not spend time on it.

It should be obvious by now where to focus your time and energy, but how can you get what you want to accomplish off the list and into your everyday life? What actions do you need to take? What’s the first, most important thing you need to do to start making your essential goals come to fruition? Today’s the day to get started!

What’s on your bucket list?

Guilt. Why do we teach our children to feel guilty? Katty Kay, the BBC correspondent calls guilt the wasted emotion.
Guilt feels like a huge weight on our shoulders and drains our energy. Guilt affects our decisions and then we feel guilty because of these decisions. We feel overwhelmed and get stuck.

Why do we feel guilty?

• We are trying to avoid something. Perhaps we’ve been asked to do something we don’t want to do. Instead of saying no, we’ve said yes and regret that decision.
• We are reacting to a situation.
• We feel like we aren’t good enough. Some women struggle with their identity after they turn fifty, they retire or their children leave. They are guilty because they feel lost.
• We can’t forgive ourselves, or others. Forgiveness of self and others frees us so that we can manifest positive energy rather than wallowing in negative energy.
• We “should” and “ought” ourselves. How many times have you said “I should’ve known…?” My first response when I learned that we had received a fraudulent offer on our house that was for sale was “I should’ve known.”
• What if … We look at the worst case scenario instead of the best case scenario.
• Our religious upbringing taught us to be guilty.
• As children we heard these phrases with negative endings: “You are always…” You never…”“It’s your fault…”

Try these 6 tips for positively dealing with guilt:

1. Focus on your strengths. Get the book Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath and take the online assessment. Ask your friends what they think your strengths are.
2. Practice affirmations. Create positive statements about yourself and post them where you will see them often. Put one on your computer screen, on the mirror, in your car.
3. Release the power draining words “should” “ought” and “need” and replace them with the powerful phrase “I choose to…”
4. Ask for what you want so you won’t feel guilty when you do make requests. My Grandmother once said to my Mother, “how will Betsy ever get what she wants if she doesn’t ask for it?”
5. Treat yourself to something you love – because you are worth it.
6. If you’ve made a mistake, accept it and move on. Say to yourself “I did the best I could with what I knew at the time.”

Guilt is a wasted emotion. Let it go!

Many of us Second Bloomers are caregivers, facing similar challenges. My good friends Mary Beth Sloan, Derek Ferebee, and Laura Levitan, have a wonderful place online where you can receive support. Below is their latest newsletter article. If you choose, you can contact them to receive the newsletter yourself. And best of luck to you; what you’re doing is wonderful and difficult.  – Kathleen Logan

“Caregivers and Self Care”
by Mary Beth Sloan

How are you today? Are things going smoothly, or is it a troublesome day? Or, should we ask is it a troublesome morning, hour, or moment? How many times have you cleaned up a mess today? How many times have you changed the bed this morning? How many times have you repeated an answer to the same question? Was the routine broken yesterday because somebody visited and now you’re paying for it?

Caregiving requires one to learn to live with constant interruptions, frequent demands on time and patience, and feelings of being hopelessly trapped. The list of stressors never ceases when you’re caring for someone else. So, what do you do to defuse the frustrations, quell the anger, and cope with the feelings you have?

One suggestion is to keep a journal. Writing is a healthy way to vent, record and learn from your experiences. Buy a spiral notebook and keep it handy. Jot things down as they happen, or write the day’s story in the evening when things are quiet. If the idea of journaling appeals to you, please give yourself permission to write without worrying about spelling, grammar, neatness of handwriting, or format. The writing in this journal is for you alone. Become your own pen-pal and pour your soul into it. Honest, fervent entries can dissipate negativity as effectively as conversation with someone who understands can. Feel the relief writing can bring.

To test this suggestion, we invite you to write us right now. Write us about something that happened, good or bad. Write about how you feel, or write about the things you do to preserve your mental and physical health. Reach out to your fellow caregivers and share your hard-earned wisdom. We can all learn from you. Just click on: info@booksasbridgesinc.com and write.

Take care,

The Books As Bridges Team

Mary Beth, Laura and Derek
Books As Bridges, 1413 Ariola Dr, Pensacola Beach, FL 32561, USA

Click on the link below to listen now.

Feisty Side of Fifty

We’d love to hear your feedback.  Visit us on Facebook or submit a comment below and let us know what you think.

Someone is trying to steal the joy from my life. No matter what I do, it’s not enough, it’s too much, it’s wrong, it’s insensitive. If she would just change her attitude, we could have a healthy relationship.

STOP! Did I really say all that? What’s wrong with this scenario? It’s true, but just this week, I have come to accept my own role in this drama. Yes, for years I’ve tried to be kind, thoughtful, useful, generous – but it ain’t working. It’s time for me to face that fact, to change my own behavior and attitude. As Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Yep, I’ve been insane.

This women isn’t responsible for my joy—I am. The more I rely on her and others to feed my joy, the less likely I am to experience it. Giving and loving have been mostly one-way in this relationship, but now I see that I was “investing” in it with an expectation of a return on that investment. How sad that sounds to me as I write those words, because I truly thought I was being loving and accepting; my ‘plan’ was to do it long enough to succeed. But as Marianne Williamson said in A Woman’s Worth, “Joy is not necessarily what happens when things unfold according to our plans.” Darn!

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Not all rites of passage are for the young. Entering retirement is one rite of passage that we baby boomers are experiencing by the thousands!

When I relocated from New York City, I planned to continue my career in adoption social work on a part-time basis. But, given the current economy, there were few to no opportunities to carry out my career plan.

Not one to sit around and wait, I decided to re-direct my job search to the business world, completed nine weeks of computer classes to learn programs needed by  modern office workers and re-vamped my resume to reflect  how my social work background could benefit any company or non-profit. I answered hundreds of ads, had several interviews — still no job!  I have been retired by default!  After fifty years of working, not working is a new skill I am learning.

How does one learn how to not work? Initially, I learned how to have a leisurely breakfast, actually read a newspaper from cover to cover and shop during the week when the stores aren’t crowded! Taking classes, going to the gym, lunching with friends or volunteering seemed to be worthy ways to fill the days.

I’ve also learned that it takes effort to ‘not’ work. It takes effort to meet new people, find rewarding pastimes, to re-invent who you are. And so, not finding work, I embarked on a journey of self-discovery to help me decide what I want to be as I pass through this rite of aging out of the workforce.  I thought that exposing myself to new people and ideas would be a good way to begin. I enrolled in a class through a program at one of the local colleges aimed at people over 50. The class was interesting, if somewhat superficial. And the people?  Well, I thought they were very………..old!  I didn’t belong in that class.  Everyone had white hair and wrinkles.   When I expressed this to my husband, he looked at me with a quizzical expression, as if to remind me (without speaking a word) of the monthly trips to the beauty parlor to color my hair!!!

And so, my journey continued to re-discover myself and acknowledge the concept that I actually am a senior citizen. (I know my parents were!  But they were old!  They needed doctors, couldn’t rise out of a chair without grunting, ate dinner at 5:00 p.m. and rose with the sun.  Oh, wait!  So do I!)

Last spring I received my first pension check and, in December, my first Social Security payment.  A few years ago I had my first colonoscopy!  I have my first and, hopefully,  only daughter-in-law. First senior discount at the movies…first  early-bird special at the local restaurant.  The list goes on and all of my fellow Baby Boomers will, I am sure, easily identify!

As I continue through the rite of passage of becoming a senior citizen and by enjoying the benefits of more lessons learned through workshops  in self-discovery for women “of a certain age”, I have come to a new understanding of life as a process.   I am learning many things: that I am not defined by the job I hold, but rather by the person I am;  that,  while some wisdom does come with age, not everyone who is aging  is wise!   These are what we call ‘life lessons’ and people say they come with age.   I am still aging (as I hope I will be for a few more years!).  I hope the life lessons continue as I do!  For this is probably my last rite of passage and I do want to make the most of it!

There are more years behind me than ahead of me.  I am beginning to accept that my first old-age will be my only old-age….that there is opportunity to use my hard-earned wisdom, patience and understanding.  Despite the fact that younger people tend to ignore or minimize our importance, my generation continues to be productive, active, engaged.  We will embrace this rite of passage and whatever it brings with the same feistiness and sense of rebellion we had in the 60s.   Rock on!

About the Author:

Born and raised in New York City, Carole graduated City College of N.Y. and  lived for a few years in Montreal where she worked as a public relations writer and account rep.  After moving back to N.Y. she continued in that field and also worked at Newsweek Magazine and a major NYC hospital before taking a hiatus to raise her son, now 26 years old and living with his wife in New Mexico.  While being a full-time mother to her son she attended graduate school and achieved an M.S. in counseling in 1990.  After receiving her degree, she began an 18-year stint as an adoption social worker before retiring to N.C. in 2009.  She currently enjoys writing creative non-fiction, attending writing workshops, taking writing classes whenever and wherever she can and living with her husband of 37 years, a retired financial executive.

We Have Nothing to Fear, but Fear Itself

-Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Are you fearless, or fearful? Fear is an embodiment of the ancient fight or flight response. Fear serves us – and it can cause pain, paralysis and depression. Is fear a learned behavior? Some researchers think that a person’s fearfulness or fearlessness is in the genes. My purpose is not to look at the DNA of fear, but to give some tips on overcoming being fearful.

Susan Jeffers, author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway identifies three levels of fear:

Level 1 – The surface story, what you tell yourself.

Level 2 – The inner status of mind, your sense of self

Level 3 – I can’t handle it

Her premise is that at the bottom of every fear is the fear that you can’t handle whatever life brings you. She states that all you have to do to diminish your fear is to develop greater trust in your ability to handle whatever comes your way.

Try these tips for overcoming fear:

1. Change negative thinking into positive thinking. Change what is the worst thing that can happen to what is the best thing that can happen.

2. Practice affirmations. Affirmations are positive statements (self talk). Affirmations are stated as if something is already happening.

My world is filled with abundance.

I am now handling all of my fears.

I am happy and excited about my second half of life.

How do you overcome fear? Share your tips with us.

Betsy and I are frequently asked, “In your book, why do you compare the lives of women over 50 to a garden?”

Our answer varies a bit, but the heart of it is this: As women over fifty, we are often treated like annuals, pulled out and tossed on the compost pile when we’re no longer young. Actually, we are perennials, a permanent, colorful, and vital part of our nation’s garden, capable of a Second Blooming or what some call a “second life.” We want to contribute our experience and wisdom for the betterment of our families, community and culture. Just as beautiful gardens must be planned, planted, watered and fertilized, so must we nurture our selves. With the same loving care, we can each grow our life’s garden, as well, and create a fulfilling, meaningful future.

Job hunting is a job. Kathleen and I presented job hunting tips in a teleseminar for the National Association of Baby Boomer Women. This post and my next few posts will summarize our tips.

How do I know where the jobs are?

Your friends are a great resource. Let them know you are in the job market. Ask if they know of any openings. Utilize the internet. Here are some good resources we found.

• Workforce50: www.workforce50.com
• Encore Careers: www.encore.org
• Seniors for Hire: www.seniors4hire.org
• Simplyhired 50+: www.simplyhired.com
• AARP jobs: www.jobs.aarp.org
• A Resume Guide by Alison Doyle: jobsearch.about.com/od/resumes/a/resumeguide.com
• The Riley Guide: www.rileyguide.com/network.html

What is the first thing I need to do?

Start from the inside out. Get positive and stay motivated. Remember that your age is an advantage because you have work experience and a professional network. Mature women are flexible, have life skills and a good work ethic.

Set realistic expectations and expect a roller coaster ride. Some days will be great, others will be disappointing.

Identify your strengths and skills. We recommend the book Strengthsfinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. You must purchase the book new because it has a code in it to access an online assessment.

What kinds of resumes are there and what should I include in mine?

Resumes can be chronological, functional or a hybrid. A functional resume emphasizes what you know and what you have accomplished, not where you have worked. You can google “functional resume” and find hundreds of examples.

Highlight current skills, not those of twenty years ago. Use current language. “Human resources” is now “Human Resource Development” or “Talent Management”.

Craft each resume to answer each job announcement. Use the same words that are on the announcement. Yes, job hunting is work!

Does the company want the resume sent via email or a hard copy? If they require a hard copy, use high quality white paper – no pastels or texture.

What are companies looking for in potential employees?

Each company is unique. Research them on line. Zappos, an online shopping site has their organizational culture described on their website. They state specifically the characteristics they look for in employees. Pay close attention to the job announcement.

All businesses want people with a good work ethic and the ability and willingness to work with people of all ages.

We would like to hear your fifty things to do since you have arrived at the wonderful age of fifty. Be creative. Be courageous. Don’t let limiting beliefs (“I can’t do that”) get in your way. Remember what you loved to do when you were ten or twenty. Wouldn’t it be fun to revisit that activity? Are you now living any of your childhood dreams?
Have a Fifty After Fifty party and brainstorm with your friends.

Submit your list in the comment box below, or email it to us by Friday June 17, 2011. The winner will receive an autographed copy of Second Blooming for Women and be announced in the July newsletter. Your winning list will be published on our Website.