I had just celebrated one of those ‘big’ birthdays. I found myself musing, “How did I get here?” A question that surprised even me. It seemed so quick!
I had hit the end of one decade and was starting another. While moving through the previous decades had been pretty effortless, this one felt different.
The realization that most of my life is behind me. Now the future is not sometime out there but is right here, right now! Having lost close family members and friends in the recent past have only just highlighted how fleeting and fragile life is.
It feels like only yesterday that I was …well younger! And with fewer aches and pains. Don’t get me wrong, I am well aware that every stage of life has its own junction and transition points and I have navigated many, like us all.
And yet – this one has felt more challenging and seriusly contemplative. No doubt, in years to come, it will be just like any other but only after I have fully lived through it!
So, what else am I noticing?
I have been re-visiting the path and choices I did not exercise as well as the decisions I did make.
I have to gently remind myself not to spend too much time in the land of rumination. That I made the best decisions I could with the resources I had given the prevailing circumstances.
I am also noticing that thinking too much about the future is not the smartest approach either. Pondering on the unknowns, life can become unnecessarily anxiety provoking, complicated and even undermining.
And I have also been reminded of a wonderful enabler as I embrace this new decade…..
The gift of the present
The beautiful present where there is so much goodness, energy and power. And the present which also enables us to take the rightful and doable action we need to take now.
It is also a smart combat for the future-oriented worry monster!
Another gift of being here in life’s journey is giving myself permission to enjoy the bounties of the present. In other words, all that is good and working well which can easily be taken for granted.
Embracing the joyful
It feels really refreshing to be asking myself, “What do I really, really want to do NOW?” “Is there something I have always wanted to do and haven’t but can do now?”
I have been reviewing that which gives me pleasure and joy and find that a lot of these are the simple things in life.
Listening to the inner voice
Of course, the questions I am asking can be asked at any stage in life. But the answers are not always quick and easy. It requires us to be mindful, to stay open and to keep connecting with our deeper self.
My inquiry has made me more attuned to the different “signs” and “signals” that have been vying for my attention. It has meant listening to that fleeting inner voice which in the hum of our busy lives can easily get silenced.
It has also required me to trust the new insights and that those interesting opportunities will come as they always have in the past.
Most of all, I am reminded that in my desire for knowing and having certainty, I don’t always have to move fast and give premature form and structure to things….to let emerge what needs to emerge….like the incubating chrysalis, the DNA is inherently there.