We often hear from our followers and receive stories that are worth sharing. Here is one from Israel. Michal Zak gathers a circle of women in her small town to celebrate International Women’s Day by telling stories about their Grandmothers. We thought this would be especially nice to share with you now, during this unprecendented time where gathering is on hold. It’s a beautiful story about love, generations, trauma and the healing power of storytelling. Enjoy.

I have been following the Twisting the Plot blog and podcasts, and it got me thinking about my community. I live with 100 Jewish and Palestinian families in a small village in Israel. The “founding mothers and fathers” are about 65 years old. As one of the elders (I am 61) I believe it is important for us as elders, to move aside and let the younger generations lead, but I am also aware of the multitude of experience (good and bad), and of the knowledge that we hold. My motto to the younger generation is “make new mistakes, don’t make the mistakes that we have already made.”

Recently we have noticed that there is a new social class in our village: the grandparents. So, three other women and I decided to organize the International Women’s Day activities around the topic of Grandmothers. We counted 18! We usually don’t have official only-women meetings in the village (unofficially, we are always gathering, walking, doing yoga, gossiping, and solving the world’s problems). This was the third time that I can remember, since the mid-’70s, when we gathered women- only. The committee of two Jewish and two Palestinians (two older and two younger members) decided to focus on grandmothers because we wanted a topic that can be inclusive. And everyone has grandmothers… or so we thought.

We invited all the women to an evening of food and dialogue. We chose one Jewish and one Palestinian facilitator from the younger generation that alone brought many young women to the meeting, women that usually don’t participate in community dialogue. I am a group facilitator, and it wasn’t easy for me to let go, I breathed deep and offered my experience, and I must say, everything went well, and it felt good.

On Feb. 27, 2020, thirty women gathered in our spiritual center, each with a typical dish from their grandmother’s kitchen. We had carbs from Palestine, Poland, Ethiopia, Argentina, Yemen, Egypt, Turkey, Russia, Algeria, and Morocco. So, we were happy.

Thirty is a big crowd in our community. We see such participation in times of crisis or celebrations with children; the young mothers said it was great to be able to leave the kids with an in-house babysitter, without arguing who will stay home and who will go to the meeting. One young mother came with a two-week-old baby.

We were Jews and Palestinians, ages 28-75, sitting in a circle, sharing memories from our grandmothers. The facilitators had other activities planned, but the sharing part took two hours. The women didn’t want to be quick or short.

I was astounded with the number of stories about strong, loving grandmothers: one Palestinian grandmother, in the early ’80s, demanded and succeeded, to participate in her son’s funeral and even help carry the stretcher (with his body), while it was, and still is, unaccepted for women in her town to participate in funerals. A Jewish woman shared a funny story remembering her sweet old grandmother always drinking tea, only later finding out it was mixed with alcohol, yet another Palestinian woman remembered how her grandmother sat on her bed, not able to move anymore but still managed the household and the extended family, and nothing passed by her.

A Jewish grandmother sold fish in the market and used to take their eyes out with her pinky finger. A Jewish woman told a story about her grandmother that was silenced as she grew up. She said that her Moroccan grandmother never stopped looking for one of her children, a baby (one of many in those days) that was kidnapped from her hands in an Israeli hospital, in the 1950s and was probably sold for adoption. This same woman also shared a funny image that is stuck in her mind (and now in ours), of the same grandma pulling colorful kerchiefs from her bra.

A Palestinian woman told of her refugee grandmother in the Nakba (the war of 1948), she was uprooted, all her family’s land was confiscated by the State, and still, she managed to rebuild her family, as an internal refugee, in Israel.

I told the story of my grandmother, who worked in a boarding school, giving us all a model of the working woman. One Jewish grandmother from Turkey always cleaned and her hands were wet and smelled of bleach, she didn’t bother to dry them even when she fixed her granddaughter’s hair. One young woman shared how surprised she was when her grandmother accepted her as a lesbian.

We went from tears to laughter. The stories of strong women piled up until the circle reached one, and a second, and a third Jewish woman who said, “I didn’t have any grandparents growing up, they were killed in the holocaust.”

The circle was able to hold all these stories, and while often Jews and Palestinians cannot hold their histories together, this time, we were able to hear Nakba stories, holocaust stories, and stories that involved State crimes toward its weak citizens (Palestinians and Jews from Arab countries).

I am not sure if it had to do with the fact that we were only women. I have facilitated only-women dialogue groups of Jews and Palestinians who were stuck in a conflict mode or an avoidance mode for much too long. Maybe it was the topic, maybe the fact that it was an inter-generational group, or maybe it was the carbs.

Michal zak
Wahat al Salam\Neve Shalom, Israel
March 2020

The post A letter from Israel appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

1. Review

2. Revise

3. Reframe

Reviewing gets you in touch with your experiences. It is the way to feel the feelings tied to your stories. When you take a close look at yourself and your thoughts, instead of avoiding them or just letting life happen, you are more fully engaged with what is you.

Revising is the way to let your past transform. You get to take part in this. You can’t change what happened but you can change the story you tell yourself. Revising doesn’t mean dismissing. Instead, you revise your past from alternate points of view to discover strengths and moments of clarity in difficult situations.

The purpose of reframing is to foster your becoming. Reframing provides a new window and allows you to move forward, with all that you’ve been, and evolve into someone new. The reframe gives you purpose and direction.

Here is a simplified example:

Lin never wanted to sit and look at the actual events of her life. She preferred to say “My life sucks, that’s why I drink and shop. It’s the way I get through.”

Over the years she avoided herself more and she felt worse.

Finally at 52, she decided she had to take charge.

“The script has gotten away from me and now I’m really a mess.”

So first we reviewed. For example, we looked at Lin’s childhood, when she felt frightened and alone. “It was painful to do, I felt a lot of emotions, but it was also a relief.”

Then we revised. “Look at how that girl was clever. She actually survived so much.”

Then we reframed. “I am not a mess. I am a woman who has always recreated herself.”

Now Lin doesn’t have to run from the past and she can look towards what’s next.

The truth is, by the time we reach our 50’s we have been incubating a whole new self within ourselves. We can’t let old stories keep her from coming through.

Your future self is waiting for you to imagine her and put her to work in the world.

Let’s let her out…

The post How To Be In Charge Of Who You Are Becoming appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

Our memories, particularly ones that involve shame and fear, often seem to be frozen in time. It’s a burden we carry with us like the chains that Dickens’ Jacob Marley drags behind him. 

But are our memories written in stone?

Oliver Sacks wrote:

We now know that memories are not fixed or frozen, like Proust’s jar of preserves in a larder, but transformed, disassembled, reassembled, and re-categorized with the very act of recollection.

If memories are not fixed, how can we see them in a new way?

I began to explore my memories, to excavate what was beneath the frozen surface.  Who was that girl that struggled in school?  What was important to her?  How did those experiences change her?

I saw a young girl distracted from her work by her passion for people and their stories.  I saw how her intense curiosity about others would come to be the bedrock of her work in the theater and as a psychotherapist.

 I discovered that her terror and shame taught her to have deep compassion for others as they faced their own fears.

I watched her use her close call with failure to build a fire of ambition that burns still today.

By embracing the complexity of experiences, memories evolve.

I no longer have a pit in my stomach. Instead I see a girl who did not yet understand that what holds her back will become her superpowers.

The post Twisting The Plots of Our Past appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

I have this sense that at the age of 60, there is more growing for me to do.

We aren’t encouraged to think much about the years beyond 50. There is school, work, and relationships to navigate in our twenties and thirties. During our forties, we grapple with finances, property, and prestige. Some achieve fame and receive awards. Many take positions to help others and change the world in some way. My contemporaries have been busy. 

But what comes next? Is there another stage to reach? Is there a next level to which we can evolve?

For me at least, I believe there is. I just have to be clear about what I want it to be.

In the early 20th century, G. Stanley Hall coined the term adolescence. He is credited with creating an entire stage of youth development. Later on, when Hall was in his sixties, he realized that the adult life span lacked a “full plot,” and he speculated that perhaps our later years needed more consideration and attention. 

Today, we continue to be puzzled by what it means to grow up past just being a grown-up.  

The truth is, many of us will live to be 90 even 100 or more—if we are lucky.  

What will those next 40–50 years hold in store for us?  

In A Fresh Map of Life, Peter Laslett suggests that growing older comes with the responsibility to construct a future he calls the “crown of life.” 

Mark Freedman, in The Big Shift, asks:

What is this period all about?  What distinguishes it? What are the unique features that give it meaning and make it different from other periods in life?  

He goes on to assert:

I’m drawn to…the notion of this period as something higher, a vista from which one can make out patterns, understand complexity, and more clearly appreciate what’s most important…A kind of higher adulthood.  

I want to grow into higher adulthood and construct my future crown of life.  

Here are five ways I wish my grown-up self to evolve.

My Grown-Up Has Inner Resources

No more excuses. I may suffer, but I am not a victim. I may struggle, but I am not helpless. No more pointing fingers or blaming others. I am responsible for my reactions.  

I am the caretaker of myself.

Years ago, I met a woman who casually warned me, “Don’t forget to do your inner work.” This has stayed with me for years.  

In their book The 100 Year Life, Gratton and Scott describe what they term “intangibles” as vital tools for living a long and successful life. Intangibles are the things that go unseen by others. They include self-knowledge, balanced thinking, emotion regulation, and creative problem-solving. According to Gratton and Scott, intangibles have as much impact on our success as money and prestige.

Neuroscientist Dilip Jest declares that mature brains are primed for the kind of thinking that we consider wisdom. He does warn, however, that the attainment of this prize is not guaranteed to all.  It is yet another skill to nurture.  

How do I deepen my connection to my inner wisdom? Even more important, how do I put inner resources to service?  

My Grown-Up Is Adaptive

The Innovation Group at J. Walter Thompson coined the term “elastic generation” to describe the over-50 crowd. This title captures the resilient nature of the grown-up I want to be.  

Mary Catherine Bateson calls over 50 “Adulthood II” and says that since there is no script for this stage; we need to develop the skill of improvisation. This means that instead of resisting change and turbulence, grown-ups say “yes, and…” In other words, we accept what comes and we make it into something worthwhile.

My grown-up self plays. She adapts instead of clings, looks forward instead of regrets.   

She subscribes to the science of neuroplasticity, which assures us that we can learn new things. No matter my age or my experience, I will continue to grow. I am open to change. Ready for what comes.

My Grown-Up Is Self-Renewing 

The grown-up I want to be will keep evolving. She is always developing and developing more.  Her identities unfold and unfold again.  

Psychologist Fredric Hudson calls this process “self-renewal” and proclaims that it’s through the experience of self-renewal that we become our next possible self. Growing up is not a linear process. It cycles, it deepens, and it expands.  

I revel in the idea that there are always new possible selves to discover, grow into and live. This means I resist the tug of complacency and stasis. My grown-up never says, “That’s just not me,” or “I could never be that.” 

Possible selves, a term coined by psychologist Hazel Markus, are always ahead for us. Crafting a self is a lifetime task, and I am thrilled by the idea of who my next future self will be.

My Grown-Up Takes the Lead  

She has power. She is responsible. She leads.

My grown-up is not deterred by limits set by ageism, or norms that say it’s time to slow down and retire. My grown-up knows she has more to give.

Susan Krauss Whitbourne of the University of Massachusetts cites findings that illustrate how long-term fulfillment is correlated with work that involves concern for others. Likewise, findings from the famous Harvard Adult Study suggest that a life well lived includes engagement with and contribution to others. According to the developmental psychologist Erik Erikson, generativity is the ultimate task for the grown-up self.

In How to Live Forever, Mark Freedman describes generativity:

Generativity isn’t just about adding years to our later years. It’s ultimately about connecting to and nurturing the life that flows beyond our years.  

My grown-up looks for ways she can make a difference. She doesn’t want to be seen as a burden to the younger generations.  

So I ask myself, what can I give, and how can I help? 

It is possible that the young need us as much as we need them. We just have to figure out how.

My Grown-Up Collaborates

A grown-up works well with others. She is not reactive. She sees the big picture and champions difference. She is tolerant. She includes.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said:

A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things.

It’s time to refuse isolation. I don’t hoard my goods or my heart. I stretch my arms back to those that come up behind us and reach forward to those who went before. People, all of them, are an opportunity for connection, support, and strength.  

In the end, for our species, community is the greatest resource. It could be that the role for all of us grown-ups is to nurture these communities and keep them sacred.  

Now that I have outlined the map to my grown-up me, I say this to myself: It’s time to get to work.

You are welcome to join me.

We haven’t lived this long to be useless.  

Let’s make growing up count.

The post Growing Up Past 50: Is there yet another level? appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

I ask her how she was so sure her future lacked new potential.

She replied.   “My proof is my past.  It has always been bad.”

It’s a common complaint: The data is in. The findings are set. The future is determined (and it sucks by the way).

I see that we are gazing into a crystal ball that reflects only what’s gone before.  

It could be that psychotherapy contributes to this effect.  As psychotherapists, we encourage clients to look at their back-stories in order to better understand their present selves.  This is fine, to an extent.  But it becomes a problem when windows to the past are all we offer.  

We can’t stay in the past expecting to find new futures.  It won’t work because the past has already happened.  The future lies ahead, and it is unknown.  Just like our potential.

“Yes, “says Karen, “but how can you believe in something that doesn’t exist?”  

Good question.  How do we come to envision something that has not happened before?  How do we begin to live something we haven’t done already?  How can we be someone we have not yet been?

Simple.  We use our imagination.  We make it up.  We believe.

We create fictions in order to find new truths.

It’s not such a crazy notion, really.  We do it all the time.  

Most original discoveries, the ones that blow our minds and change our lives, are born from something never experienced before.  It is something out of reach in the current objective reality, something beyond the data points on a graph that produces the invention that moves us from who we have been to what we could be.  

At times, in both science and in art, we have to believe in fiction and free ourselves from the narratives we retell again and again.  Likewise, we have to challenge the limits put upon us by unimaginative, rote and repetitive stories.

Like the stories promoted by ageism and sexism.  Like the belief that going over and over our past helps us evolve and transform.  Like the notion that who we are now, and who we will be next, is determined by who we have been so far.

Because neither future possibilities nor their estimated value can be seen, heard, felt, or smelled, these are not features of the world that are presented to the mind by perception, past or present.  The mind must add them. 

                                                Martin Seligman in Homo Prospectus

Once we create some future possible scenarios that capture our interest, we have to believe in them and enter the new reality by taking action.  If you think this is far fetched, consider this, a child learning to walk has no advance proof she can succeed but believes it enough to keep getting up.  The runner who prepares for the next marathon believes her goal is possible while she runs her first lap.  The artist who images a scenic vision believes something will emerge when she paints the first stroke.  

It’s the future that puts us on the path to our becoming.  It’s the future, not the past that pulls us to our new possibilities.  

So to Karen, who sits in my psychotherapy office and tells her story of “been there, done that, done,” I say, It’s time to create.  It’s time to pretend.  It’s time to take steps that bring forth new doings.

It’s time to venture into fictions so improbable that you are pulled out of the repetitions of the past. Let’s shake the crystal ball and look beyond the expected to take action on the not yet dreams.

What else can you envision? What else could be?  What can you do next? 

Make it up.

Make it good.

The post How to Build a Future with New Potential appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

The beauty of DBT skills is that when they are practiced, they open doors towards a deeper wiser experience of life.Source: Shutterstock

For years I have been teaching and coaching clients to use certain skills during painful times. Lately I’ve been teaching the skills to middle-aged women.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy—DBT—is a solution-focused, active treatment with the overarching goal to build a life worth living. Instead of just talking, you teach skills and ask the clients to practice them outside the session room. The skills, created by Dr. Marsha Linehan, are research-tested tools for managing thoughts, emotions and behaviors during trying times.

And middle age can be a trying time.

In 2016 the CDC published findings stating that the suicide rate for women between the ages of 45-64 increased by 63 percent between 1999 and 2014. Likewise, there is a significant increase in women over 50 visiting ERs with opiate and alcohol-related overdoses. And the number of women over 50 diagnosed with eating disorders has caught up to that of adolescent girls, necessitating an increase in residential treatment facilities to house the older women sufferers.

The middle-aged women in my practice are dealing with a myriad of challenging issues. They struggle with physical illness, divorce, difficult children, grief, regret, career shifts, financial issues, menopausal symptoms and body concerns. They experience mood shifts, intense anxiety, depressed feelings, irritability and hopeless thinking.

Regardless of what women experience, midlife is a time of challenge and transformation. We could all use extra guidance and new coping skills to help us through uncertainty and change. The beauty of the DBT skills is that when they are practiced, they open doors towards a deeper wiser experience of life.

There are many skills, but I have eight favorites for middle age woes.

The first one that I will discuss is OBSERVE.

We can practice Observe in the following ways.

1. Noticing what you are experiencing through the five senses. Practice seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling daily.
2. Observing the world inside of you by noticing thoughts, bodily sensations and emotions within yourself.
3. Attending to people and events surrounding you. Act as if you have a camera attached to your body. Notice, without pushing away, all that is presented to you.
4. Observing only what is, without judgment. Judgment requires a thought process that pulls you out of the present action of pure observation.

While it may sound simple and easy, the practice of Observe can be quite challenging.

The truth is, after years of living, we often function on autopilot. To a major extent, autopilot is necessary. We can’t approach every day and every experience as if it were the first time. Imagine getting in the car every morning and having to re-learn how to put the key in the ignition. The problem occurs when we let our observing muscles atrophy.

There are three main reasons to practice Observe at midlife.

Observing makes us less reactive

The very act of observing helps us step back and be less reactive. Observing creates space to respond in ways that nourish, instead of depleting or harming us.

Lonnie was having daily fights with her teenage daughter, who would leave her clothing around the house. Everyday, Lonnie would yell at her daughter and immediately experience a headache. She would feel angry and frustrated and go straight to the refrigerator and shove food into her mouth. Lonnie was miserable, gaining weight and losing work due to the headaches.

Starting with the skill Observe, Lonnie practiced noticing her daughters clothing on the floor. Taking time to observe the clothing, she would then describe to herself what she saw: red pants, pink blouse, blue socks. Next, Lonnie would observe her own reactions. She began to notice that her jaw was tightening and her fists would clench. Later Lonnie noticed that when she screamed at her daughter she would feel tension in her temples. She then noticed her thoughts. Her thinking told her that her life was intolerable and unfair.

The observed experiences gave her space to consider other options for responding. Instead of yelling and clenching, Lonnie began taking care of herself when she observed her daughter’s clothing on the floor. She would immediately take some soothing breaths and perhaps make a cup of tea. Eventually, because she was calmer, she started leaving humorous post-it notes for her daughter about the clothing. Her daughter, freed from having to defend against the attacks by her mother, picked up the clothing and started leaving loving post-it notes to her mother suggesting she have a nice day.

The change in this interpersonal dynamic began with the skill Observe. Taking time to reconsider our automatic reactions to our experiences gives us the chance to redesign who we want to be and how we want to show up in our lives.

Observing helps us learn new things

Our brains are capable of something called neurogenesis. We can create new neurons and keep increasing our brain’s capacity, but we can only do this by giving ourselves new experiences that fire new neurons. All learning starts with observing.

Psychologist Ellen Langer states it simply: “What we have learned to look for in a situation determines mostly what we see.”

By learning new things we can see things differently. Sometimes in midlife life we refuse to see things differently. When change is forced upon us we freeze up. We get stuck because we try to adapt to change without noticing the change. Instead, we cling, hold on or willfully wait for our status quo to return.

Beth couldn’t deal with the change that befell her life. Her parents passed on and she couldn’t accept it. Practicing Observe, she started noticing her flower garden each morning. In time, she witnessed the cycle of birth and rebirth in her flowers. This sparked her interest and she began to do research about plant life. She planted more and more flowers. As her flower garden grew, so too did her capacity to accept life and death. Beth then started volunteering at a hospice center teaching and helping others grasp the mysteries of mortality with grace and beauty.

Observing in midlife reignites the pleasure of being

Finding new meaning, gaining joy from this life, and re-discovering who you may be all starts with observation. Building a sense of curiosity and wonder may be the most vital skill for growth and well-being in midlife.

But because we are so harried and stressed, many of us stop noticing the little treasures of living.

In 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning Journalist Gene Weingarten of the Washington Post did an experiment to illustrate how much we miss in our daily lives. In the experiment, he had an average looking man in a baseball cap and t-shirt set up to play violin next to a trashcan in Washington DC subway station during the morning rush hour. This man opened his violin case, took out the instrument and left his open case on the ground for passersby to drop in coins or dollar bills. More than a thousand people passed by as he performed six classical pieces over the course of forty minutes. The catch was that this man wasn’t just any street performer. He was the famous musician Joshua Bell and he was playing Bach’s Chaconne—the most difficult violin piece—on a $3.5 million Stradivarius. A hidden camera recording revealed that over the course of that rush hour performance in the subway station, only seven people stopped to watch his performance for at least a minute. However, the tape also revealed that every time a child walked past Bell, they tried to stop and watch but were rushed along by their parents. Ironically, days before this experiment in the subway, concert-goers had paid up to a hundred dollars for a ticket to see Bell play the same instrument at a sold-out show.

How much more of life will we experience if we are truly present to it?

In sum, observing our lives in the moment can make midlife less overwhelming and more pleasurable. We always have a choice, not of what happens to us, but what we observe about it, and how we respond.

Next week I will talk about the next DBT skill for midlife woes, PARTICIPATE.

The post How to Build a Midlife Worth Living appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

It’s happening in politics. It’s happening in business. And it’s probably happening in your very own community.

What about you?

Do you have a powerful woman inside you wanting to step forward? Do you want to make your next acts count?

If you’re so inclined, there are ways you can begin to think about the possibilities.

Here are three simple steps for you to take to perhaps become the woman you want to become.

1. Mind your mindset

The research is certain. Cognitive behavior therapy works, and it works like this: what you think determines how you feel, what you do, and who you become.

Carol Dweck calls our thoughts and beliefs “mindset.” She identifies two types, fixed and growth. Thinking with a fixed mindset halts our evolution, whereas a growth mindset keeps us curious, learning and open to change.

Ageism is a fixed mindset, and women over 50 have to deal with it.

What about you? Do you automatically think in an ageist, fixed way? Do you find yourself saying, “I’m too old, I missed the boat, you can’t teach a dog new tricks.”

If you do, you need to stop. A fixed mindset will hold you back. It will keep you stuck.

The good news is you can start to practice a growth mindset, and there are many ways to do it. We suggest you begin by noticing your fixed thoughts and turning them into questions.

For example: “What is too old anyway? When is the next boat coming? Who says I can’t learn new tricks.”

Keep curiosity as your guide. Reframe all your fixed thoughts into questions. These questions will direct the story you create about yourself and the next stage of your life.

2. Put your imagination to work.

We have to dream and take our dreams seriously. We can’t look to the past for direction to move forward. If we look for our futures based on what has already been, we will wind up doing the same thing over and over again.

We have to turn to our imagination, the place where we conjure that which is not yet present. We can create who we can be as older women in the world.

If you think this sounds like an impossible task, please consider this: imagining something new and then living into it is actually our birthright. If our species never dreamed of what else could be, we would still be living in caves, wondering how and where to find food and water.

We are an imaginative, creative and ever-evolving species. And women, even older women, get to imagine playing roles and doing things we’ve never done before.

Try this: make up and write three different stories about women over 50 doing important, meaningful or pleasurable things. Give the stories details and give the women characteristics that you may desire or would love to see manifest.

Stretch your imagination. Let fiction be your guide. Don’t get caught up in the how or the “yeah, buts.”

Your future is your creation. You create the script. Don’t let someone else write it for you.

3. Focus on your strengths.

Let’s face it, it is so much easier to identify our weaknesses then it is to know our strengths.

It’s not entirely our fault. There are actually 40,000 labels describing what is wrong with us, and only about 4,000 labels for what is right. Ageism is all about negativity, the notions of weakness, failure and loss. And focusing on our weaknesses deters us from actualizing our power.

It is time to identify our unique strengths, own them fully and use them purposefully.

There are two valid assessment tests to take online and uncover your strengths, The Gallup Clifton Strengths Assessment, and the VIA Institute On Character. You can take one or both of these assessments to help turn your attention away from shortcomings and focus on the ways you can begin to shine.

If you don’t want to take an assessment, we also suggest this: Think of a time when you felt you were your best self. Write the story. Look to the story for the strengths that you portrayed. Write them down.

Write and rewrite your strengths in many ways and put them in many places. Name them. Claim them. Share them with others.

Then, aim your strengths. Let them inform the choices you make, the goals you set and the plans you follow.

It’s time to transform our complaints about aging into a mission. A mission that turns what once seemed impossible into something possible.

It is happening. And it can for you too.

The post Attention Women Over 50: Something’s Happening appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

The other day I was looking through the columns my father, Donald Murray, wrote for the Boston Globe over the last 20 years of his life. I came across his final New Year’s column printed on December 26, 2006 four days before his death. The column was titled “Finding Pleasure in the Challenge of a Blank Sheet”. In it he wrote “Friends wonder why I do not take it easy. Why I do not play golf or walk through cathedrals in Italy. Because I have an obsession. I write. I draw. I try to capture a fragment of life and reveal its wonder to you. I never quite get it right, but there is joy in the trying that makes me young at 83. My New Year’s wish for you, old and young, is that you find in the year ahead something you can’t do.”

That was when I decided to look back over the year and realized that I had unwittingly been following my Dad’s advice. This year I started a business with my dear friend Cecilia. The year has been a roller coaster ride complete with steep hills, white knuckling drops, and sharp turns. I have been forced to confront my fears and insecurities, all while wrestling with my inner voice that says, “You can’t do this”, “Don’t be a fool”, “You are too old”, and “You don’t know what you are doing.” There have been many days when I have thought “I should walk away, slow down, think about retirement”.

Instead I have learned to forge ahead accepting what I do not know and seeking out the support of people who know more than I do. Growing up I somehow came to believe that not knowing was the same as ignorance. At fifty-nine, I have finally come to understand there is no shame in asking for help from others who have different experience and knowledge than you do. We have been fortunate to find people including Joe, Josh, Sam, Michael, Beth, Andrea, Jill and Lisa to encourage, guide, and challenge us to think in a new way and I feel so grateful.

I don’t generally like scary movies or rides but I have discovered that I love the thrill that comes from facing my fears and learning something new. This year has been filled with new experiences and each time I come up against one that frightens me I put my head down and dive into the water. I come up to the surface, I catch my breath, calm my heart and I am gliding through the water with ease. It’s not the outcome that excites me, but the process. It’s the small moments of discovery that fill me with joy.

So, this year instead of focusing on my shortcomings, my New Year’s Resolution is to continue to live by father’s advice. I will follow my passions, trying to make sense of what I do not understand. I will write, to capture my own elusive and evolving story of what being over fifty means to me. I will face my fears professionally and personally, savoring every moment whether I am under the water or gliding across the surface, for there is beauty in all of it. In other words, “I will find something in the coming year I cannot do.”

The post In search of my New Year’s Resolution appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

“I can’t cope with things anymore. It’s all too much.”

I guess one could say it wasn’t Maura in the driver’s seat that day. Instead, her emotions took the wheel. Meanwhile, Maura, an intelligent, reasonable and professional woman, went for the ride.

Maura thought she was responding to her situation. But instead she was reacting.

She’s not alone. When bad things happen to us, it is natural to react. When a tiger chases us, we run.

But Maura was tired of running. Besides that, she wasn’t running from a tiger, she was running from herself.

When we run, we miss out on our inner experience. We give up agency over our bodies, thoughts and behaviors. When we sprint from the moment, we miss out on the opportunity to fully engage with our emotions.

Reacting is a way of avoiding our feelings. When we avoid our feelings, they get control, we feel like victims, helpless and unable to stand our ground.

And with everything going on in the world, we need more ground.

It’s time to respond.

Marsha Linehan, PhD, in Dialectical Behavior Therapy says the function of emotions is to communicate to others and to ourselves. Emotions are private experiences that have powerful potency to influence.

Emotions are superpowers. And like all superpowers they need to be practiced and harnessed.

Dr. Linehan claims that in order for emotions to work for us, they need to be regulated. She describes emotion regulation as the ability to control or influence which emotions you have, when you have them, and how you experience and express them.

A tall order.

How do we begin to control our emotions?

We start by practicing experiencing them.

It’s important to first point out that experience and expression are not the same. One follows the other. But most of us express before we have experienced. Skipping over the experience of emotions allows the emotions to bully us.

One way to practice experiencing emotions is through pretend practice.

Actors in training learn that emotions are the fuel for delivering powerful performances. Since emotions are felt in our bodies, actors must be comfortable feeling them and practice giving them gesture and voice.

Try this. Take five minutes every day to experience feelings as an actor would.

Imagine a situation that could make you angry. (Perhaps keep it a fictional situation while you practice.)

Let the sensations enter your body.

Stand up and notice what anger brings to the body. Notice heat in the stomach. Sense the heart pound. Become aware of vibrations in the legs and arms. If you are alone, let the anger have voice. Take your anger for a walk. Keep your focus on the body. Keep your attention on the physical sensation. Make note of the power this feeling offers.

After five minutes shake it out. Switch to imagining a relaxing, peaceful scene. Let your body response switch.

Flexing emotions is the second step to owning them. We can actually feel multiple feelings at the same time. In Emotional Agility, Dr. Susan David suggests getting “unhooked” from an emotion by changing your point of view and reframing your story.

Emotions are meant to be felt but we don’t have to be beholden to them. At any point we can switch the pallet.

Maura wanted to stop running. She wanted to be a fighter and fight better for herself. She deserved to be treated better. She wanted to be seen as competent and strong. But she had to get more practice with the surges of anger in her body.

She practiced daily, feeling the energetic force of anger in her body. She noticed how if she felt the anger in her legs she could use it as strength to hold her ground. She called the heat in her stomach fuel that can be used to influence others. She imagined the energy in her arms and hands as laser might for making things happened. She started to feel more confident that perhaps the next time she gets slammed by life, she would not run.

And then she was tested.

Maura’s supervisor unfairly demeaned her in front of her employees. But this time instead of running, she stayed. She felt her legs strong like oak trees, she noticed her heavy pounding heart pump blood into her arms. She kept her breathing measured, her eye contact firm. Instead of running, she waited a few seconds.

And then she responded.

“I am going to think about your feedback and get back to you about it.”

The response was delivered with control and confidence. She could see the effect it had on her supervisor. “He was shook. And I think he was impressed somehow.”

But most important, Maura felt present. She showed up for herself. She withstood the dizzying wave of her emotion without running from it.

She was triumphant.

She refocused her attention to her prepared calming image of the ocean on a sunny beach. Took another breath and immediately felt more relaxed. The practice of unhooking had worked.

She noticed her employees sitting around the conference table and watching her, waiting for her response. She smiled.

No matter what happened next, Maura had won. She was in control of herself. She had experienced her emotions and used them to manage a difficult supervisor’s comment, and she reassured her employees that she was in charge.

Her feelings were her superpowers after all.

The post How To Turn Painful Emotions Into Superpowers appeared first on Twisting the Plot.

While you bang on the wall, you hear yourself proclaim: “I can’t take this.”

You are suffering.

You resist reality.

When midlife hits there are so many things to resist.

For Lynn it was the death of her husband, for Annette it was the loss of her parents, for Ellie it is betrayal and divorce, for Lily it was her cancer diagnosis, and for Viv it was her financial crisis.

The challenges of midlife don’t quit, and the walls don’t help.

Radical Acceptance is the skill for letting our walls down.

Radical Acceptance is the most promising skill that Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) offers. It is also the most complicated to conceptualize, and the most difficult to practice.

Most of us resist instead of accept.

On the other side of our walls lies the pain, grief, disappointment, regret, and other things that seem unbearable.

We built the walls to protect ourselves, but the problem is, we need to travel beyond them to problem-solve, make change, and find peace.

We actually have to enter the pain in order to tolerate the pain. As Robert Frost said, “The best way out is always through.”

Radical Acceptance is the first step into and out of misery.

Marsha Linehan, the creator of DBT, says it like this: “Radical Acceptance means complete and total openness to the facts of reality, as they are, without throwing a tantrum.”

In other words, no walls.

This is radical.

Here are three reasons why we need to Radically Accept.

Denying reality does nothing to change reality.

Just because you don’t talk about it, feel it, see it or listen to it doesn’t make it disappear. And jumping up and down while you hold your breath doesn’t make the bad things stop. It just makes you pass out. And even when you turn your back on the cloud, it’s still there. The truth is, reality hovers and waits for you to take it in.

No matter how hard Annette tried, she couldn’t keep her parents from dying. And despite Viv’s denial, her finances needed help. She needed to face facts and make changes.

All change begins with acceptance.

You may confuse acceptance with approval or giving in. They are not the same thing.

There are many things we must accept even though we don’t agree with them. And accepting doesn’t mean things can’t change. In fact, all change starts with acceptance of what is.

Lily needed to accept her cancer diagnosis in order to find the best treatment. Ellie had to come to terms with her marriage ending and find a way to move on. Both Lily and Ellie experienced pain.

Pain cannot be avoided.

It is just a part of life. We are built to tolerate pain. But when you don’t accept pain it turns into agony. In DBT we say:

Pain + Non-acceptance = Suffering.

Avoiding all cues that are associated with pain ensures two things: the pain will continue, and suffering will ensue.

After her husband died, Lynn refused to leave her bed. Over and over the thought, “I don’t’ want this” looped in her head. “ I refuse to accept that he’s not here. This should not have happened. “

But the reality remained. Lynn had to find a way to go on with her life.

Lynn started taking five minutes a day to lie on her living room couch and accept that her husband had passed. Palms up, face relaxed, she would take a breath, open her mouth and let out a sigh while saying to herself, “For this moment, I accept that Ken is gone.” Over time she was able to accept and let herself cry on walks. Next she was able to hold some of his belongings while she accepted that he was gone. Her wall of resistance was softening, and though she felt grief, the suffering became less.

The way to Radically Accept is to do it radically – which means you do it all the way, with your full body, mind and spirit. And often, it’s a practice, not a one-time fix.

You have to stop pounding the wall. Instead, gently lean your body against it and slowly let yourself slide down to the ground, soften your face, gentle your breath, turn the palms of your hands open and, just for this moment, accept what is.

And then do it again.

Radical Acceptance is your entry into misery and the way out of hell.

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