An unexpected ‘bonus’ of turning 50

Sometime last summer, I started getting emails with subject lines like :

Discover the Best Kept Secret

Get BIGGER with free sample

Enlarge your pink just by popping a pill

Enlarge your PINK????

Penis growth free trial: grow a big package today

Package? At least now the real P word has been ‘spoken’ (and, no, I don’t mean ‘package’)

the boy who called wolf

(Not sure how that one fits with the rest of this amazing marketing strategy – but I sure didn’t open it up to find out)

Achieve maximum sexual nirvana

and the oh-so-hard-to-resist:

Become a sex magnet in your neighbourhood

It took me a while to figure out why I was suddenly receiving these irresistible offers, but the lightbulb finally clicked on.

I had turned 50 in May

and my email address is maxspence@shaw.ca

The ‘max’ part probably caught the eye of the cyber sharks looking to cash in on the sexual issues and inhibitions that suddenly cripple men who hit the half century mark.

At least they circled their prey for awhile before launching the harpoons. I received the following message only four days after I turned 50.

Eric Bond wants to be friends with you on Facebook. Supervisor at United Nations Foundation · University of Oxford 11 friends

Eric Bond? Who’s Eric Bond?

There was a creepy message attached to the friend request that I just tried to find to reprint for you, but this particular Eric Bond has disappeared. I can’t find it, but it went something like this:

Hello, my pretty. I like your picture. You seem like a very interesting person. I’d like to get to know you better.

There were some charmingly misspelled words for a guy who works at Oxford, but perhaps a lonely just-turned-50 woman might be tempted to ‘just see’ what this guy was about and accept the friend request and then exchange a few emails and find out that Mr. Bond is a very charming fellow, brimming with ego-boosting compliments so that really it would be silly not to meet him for coffee and — oh, my, he just swept me off my feet — and then a few short months later cleaned out my bank account.

Cynical?

Yeah.

Paranoid?

Maybe, just a tad.

But it was way creepy.

I never would have imagined that there would be a predator gauntlet to run at turning 50.

I ignored Mr. Bond. And my ‘delete without opening strategy’ worked for the other campaign as well. The unsolicited pink-enhancement emails have stopped. I guess those cyber-sharks swam off to a more receptive part of the ocean . . .

so that another group could swim in . . .

inviting me to join Britney Spears, Jennifer Aniston, Jessica Alba, Nathalie Portman and Beyonce Knowles in their incredible weight loss program. Free samples abounded.

I opened nary a one of these enticing messages so I can’t even report how free they actually were.

Some of the emails were made to look like the information had been forwarded to little old me directly from Rachel Ray and Reese Witherspoon.

(Did you know Madonna lost 47 pounds?)

And I could follow suit by accepting their generous Free Trial Sample.

Except that they’re barking up the wrong tree.

If I lost 47 pounds I’d blow away on the next stiff breeze.

I heard a CBC report a few months ago explaining how the advertising gurus are no longer the ad creators but the computer geeks running the tracking software that monitors our computers and lets them know what sites we’ve been visiting so they know exactly how to target potential buyers. It, too, was kind of creepy.

But at least the advertisers worked on it a bit. Even if it is a major invasion of privacy, they did do their homework and paid someone for tracking and reporting our cyberhabits.

They didn’t just assume that every person turning 50 would be fat, lonely and flaccid.

This week I turned 51, but I should be safe from the internet hucksters. I’m thinking it’ll be a few more years before another round of ‘invitations’ arrives in my inbox.

I wonder what the perceived achilles heel of 60 year olds will be in 9 years time?

And sometimes our artistic creations don’t go exactly as planned

When we moved into our current home, the view from my kitchen window was of the neighbour’s garage.

Nice neighbours. Ugly garage.

Since I spend so much time in my kitchen, I wanted to see something beautiful when I looked out my window so, bit by bit, we improved the view. We extended the fence with lattice and trained some Virginia Creeper to grow through it. We planted an apple tree and a couple rose bushes and other perennials. And, last summer, I painted the garden shed.

I love colour and had a lot of fun picking out some vibrant paint for the door and trim that would uplift me even when I looked out my window in the dead of winter. And dipping my brush in the paint and applying that vibrant colour was so much fun! There’s something heart-opening and soul-expanding about slapping colour onto a canvas, no matter what that canvas might be.

I like for things to be functional as well as beautiful so the fact that this shed housed our garden tools fit the bill, but the piece de resistance of my vision was a shelf above the shed’s door that would hold the sweet, little bird feeder I had found at Victoria’s Flowers and Gifts.

The feeder had proved popular with the neighbourhood birds when I placed it on a log in the back yard. But it wasn’t in a place where I could easily sit and watch my feathered friends as they kibbutzed around the feeder. Nor was it the safest spot around.  In fact, a few area birds have met their untimely demise thanks to our cat, Kally, so I thought moving the feeder to this shelf out of reach of her claws would not only keep them safe, but would provide me with free entertainment while I washed my dishes.

Shed painted, shelf installed, I filled the feeder, bought a couple of bird seed cones from my son’s band fundraiser, and was eagerly looking forward to some beautiful times communing with the birds.

I was very pleased with the way it turned out.

Unfortunately, the birds were not as enamoured as I was.

They didn’t come.

In fact, they stayed away in droves.

I’m still not sure why.

Perhaps the shelf is tucked up too high. Maybe it’s too far away from the safety of the trees. Maybe they no longer like the food. Perhaps they feel too exposed or don’t want anyone watching them as they dine.

Maybe they prefer the adrenalin rush that comes from snatching a bite to eat from under the nose of the cat.

Whatever the reason, I have not seen one bird perch on my shelf all winter.

Not one bird.

Other than these, of course:

Hmmmmm.

Maybe I’ll strategically place a few branches on the shelf to make it feel more tree-like.

Or maybe I’ll just forget about trying to lure the birds to a place they apparently don’t want to go.

Even though my vision hasn’t turn out exactly as planned, I’ve already got a lot of enjoyment out of the project. Planning it was fun. Painting it was a joy. And I do still get to enjoy the colours every time I look out my kitchen window.

Maybe that’s enough.

The Journey Comes to Completion: Month #12 of Extreme Self-Care

So here we are, wrapping up twelve months of Extreme Self-Care.

Hard to believe it’s been a year since we started this journey, but time does have a way of marching on.

After a year’s worth of exploration, our final month’s homework is to put together an Extreme Self-Care First-Aid Kit. While she was writing this chapter, a cancer scare sent Cheryl Richardson into a tailspin. The worst was the interminable wait for biopsy results, but she remembered to implement her Extreme Self-Care First-Aid Kit and putting her theory into practice proved its immense value.

As we know, it can be a challenge to take extremely good care of ourselves when our lives are going well. The stakes are upped considerably when an emergency strikes. The death of a loved one, a lost job, an unexpected move, or a health challenge can suddenly rip a hole in our lives and send us grasping for coping strategies–anything will do as long as it numbs the pain or silences the fear. This is a time when it is imperative that we take good care of ourselves–extremely good care of ourselves–which is why it is so important to put together our First-Aid Kit ahead of time, when we’re strong and healthy and know what works best.

To create our kit, Cheryl suggests that we ask ourselves the following questions:

1. Who can I turn to for support when I’m afraid? Who comforts me, makes me feel safe, and allows me to have my feelings?

2. Who do I need to avoid? Who adds to my anxiety level, overwhelms me with questions, or has a tough time just listening without interrupting or offering advice?

3. What does my body need to feel nurtured, strong, and healthy?

4. What responsibilities or commitments do I need to let go of to clear some space so that I’m able to feel my feelings and do what’s necessary to honor my needs?

5. What unhelpful coping strategies or activities do I need to avoid?

6. What spiritual practice restores my faith or connects me with God or a Higher Power of my own understanding?

7. What do I need to feel comforted at this time?

8. How will I best express my feelings?

9. What object can I use as a talisman that will remind me to breathe, relax my thinking mind, and return my awareness to the present moment?

10. What can I do when I need to take a break from the emotional stress? What’s my best healthy distraction?

Three people in Cheryl’s life gave her permission to publish their Extreme Self-Care First-Aid Kits. I recommend that you have a look at their kits as a jumping off point for creating your own. (Remember, if you don’t already own this book, your library is a wonderful resource for an amazing array of information and entertainment). It’s interesting to see how varied their answers to these questions were. We are all so unique, with vastly different needs when we’re weathering a life crisis.

So that’s it.

One last month to mull over your best Extreme Self-Care practices.

Write them down. Make several copies of them. Put them in strategic places. Maybe even give a copy to your favorite support person so they can hand it to you when you’ve fallen into the abyss.

And you will fall into the abyss.

Abysses are an inevitable part of  life.

As are those on-top-of-the world moments.

Cheryl is so wise to suggest that we create our life raft when we’re standing tall and strong on the mountain top. I think I’ll take advantage of that second-hand wisdom now rather than going for the hard-earned variety at some point in my future when I find myself at the bottom of the abyss trying to remember what it was she had suggested in that great book I once read.

 

Wrapping up Month #11 of Extreme Self-Care

So I’ll own up to it right off the bat.

I didn’t do my homework.

At least, I didn’t do it the way Cheryl suggested we do it in Chapter 11 of her book,

No treasure hunting. No ‘conversation’ with an object representing a buried interest or an aspect of myself I’d like to explore further. No dates with myself, playing with that newly excavated interest.

Nope.

But I did stumble upon a realization or two all the same.

Easter Monday, I found myself with an empty afternoon stretching out in front of me. So I pulled out a story I’ve been wanting to rework before submitting it to a local online magazine and I spent the entire afternoon playing with it.

That might sound like no big deal. After all, I write all the time–this blog, a chapter book I’m currently working on–but there was something very delicious about those hours spent experimenting with different ways to convey the internal life of the story’s main character. Something deeply nourishing about dipping into my thesaurus and getting lost in the subtle nuances of words. I resurfaced hours later feeling satiated, full to the brim. Waves of satisfaction sloshed over me as I walked upstairs to reconnect with my family.

So why was this different from any other writing session?

While it’s true that I write every day, I rarely sink fully into the zone and let it take me where it will. There are too many other things to do in a day. Too many have-to’s and responsibilities and interruptions. A year or so ago, I decided to put my writing first, but as I reflected on the difference between my Easter Monday moodling and other writing sessions, I realized that I limit my daily writing to about an hour and a half each morning and then turn away to attend to the to-do list.

That ninety minutes is very focused. A lot of words make it to the page. Some time is spent reworking passages and rearranging ideas. But I never take the time to roll around in the words like a piggie in a fresh mud puddle, relishing in their shades of meaning. When I’m focused on output, there’s no time for meandering and meandering is where the joy lies.

That’s something I would like to change. More delicious mud-between-the-toes writing, please.

As I sat at my desk writing this, I looked up at my tattered thesaurus and noticed all the other books lined up with it.

and another light bulb went off

I love transformation and the tools for transformation, so many of which come in the form of books and I’ve spent years reading them and collecting them. But in the last year or so I have become more and more jaded. That negativity came to a head about a month ago when I dug a little deeper into a new healing modality I had stumbled upon and discovered some unsettling things about the motives and methods of its founders.

I was angry. I felt betrayed. It all sounded so good. How could I have been sucked in like that? What about all of the other healers and personal development coaches and authors I’ve been reading and whose words I’ve been taking to heart all these years? Are they just a load of phooey, too? Playing to a searching crowd who will lap up anything in order to feel better about themselves and their lives?

What is the truth?

The capital T Truth.

This whole mess sent the voice in my head, Ms Nasty, into overdrive:

Why do you keep buying these books, Maxine?  Why can’t you just choose one path to enlightenment and sink into it fully? Why this constant search for meaning? You are such a dilettante, always dabbling, never diving deeply.

Once Ms Nasty took hold she did not let go. She even followed me out of the province.

I spent a weekend with a friend attending an I Can Do It event in Vancouver, two full days of people sharing their wisdom. Big name speakers like Wayne Dyer, Caroline Myss, Doreen Virtue bookended lesser-known-but-up-and-coming authors. Years ago, I would have been thrilled to have been hearing some of these people speak at a live event. In the wake of my mini crisis of faith? Not so much.

In fact, I caught myself more than a few times sitting back in my seat, arms crossed and frowning. Think the Old Man Hecklers on the Muppet Show. That was me, although my snide comments didn’t make it past my friend’s ear.

 I did enjoy the weekend, but the best part, far and away, was hanging out with my friend, not hanging on the words of the Enlightened Ones.

It wasn’t until a week or so later, as I sat at my desk looking at the books in front of me, that it hit me.

The majority of speakers told of arriving in a deep, dark place in their lives and then resurfacing stronger and more capable with something tangible to offer the world. Each person found a different way to climb out of their own personal dungeon. Their tools were different, but the theme of transformation was consistent.

And it’s those tales of transformation that fascinate me.

Including the tools that people develop to effect that transformation.

With that a-ha moment blooming inside me, I moved from the row of books on my writing desk to all the other books crowding my bookshelves.

Including the row of writing books,

which lives directly above the shelf of ‘creating’ books.

Which led me back to this book:

I stood in the middle of my office for a long time, thumbing through the pages looking at all the colourful embroidery projects I was going to do ‘some day,’ especially the pillows that had caught my eye in the first place. Those pillows were the reason I bought the book.

That book has been sitting on my shelf for three years now and there are no beautifully embroidered pillows in sight.

I did not reshelve the book.

It came upstairs with me and, later that evening, I referred to it as I cut off an 18″ chunk from the too-long curtains in Stephen’s office. Today, I’ll add ‘pick up pillow forms’ to my trip-to-the-city list. Maybe tonight I’ll make a template of the floral design on the guest room duvet cover. And perhaps tomorrow I’ll dust off my sewing machine.

Step-by-tiny-step, the vision of plump pillows that has been percolating in my head for years will become reality.

So . . .

my take-home for Month #11 of Cheryl Richardson’s Extreme Self-Care is that I want to spend more time playing with words, sharing tales (and tools) of transformation, and creating with color. My palette this round is fabric and embroidery floss.

Who knows what it will be next time?

Not a bad take-home for somebody who didn’t do the homework.

Creativity doesn’t have to be this HUGE thing

Too often, I think we hear the word, creativity, through a filter of novels written, paintings hung, dances performed, plays produced.

Creativity is more – and considerably less – than that.

What we create does not matter in the least

as long as the process of creating brings us joy.

It’s bonus, if we like what we’ve made:

the experimental empty-the-fridge soup is delicious (not to mention irreproducible),

the bedtime story we make up on the spot for a fretful child brings them peace (and sleep)

the new living room arrangement makes the house feel more light and expansive . . . a perfect invitation to Spring

the furniture we make out of boxes is functional and beautiful.

WHAT?

Remember all those boxes I moved a couple of weeks ago? Some of them are now living here:

Title: Creativity in its Simplest Form 

Medium: Boxes of Leaf and found household objects

Not a bad transformation, eh?

It reminds me of the early days of our marriage when our home was furnished in ‘early cardboard’ strategically decorated with my grandma’s doilies.

When all my boxes of Leaf first arrived in August of 2011, we stacked them in this spot at the bottom of the stairs. But I had a mini panic attack every time I walked down the stairs (and every time they slid into my peripheral vision when I went by the top of the stairs) (in fact, every time I neared the staircase, which was a hundred times a day) so we moved them out of sight. They’ve been moved several times now to accommodate the needs of our family and the arrival of a long-term house guest. For the past five months they had been lining the downstairs hallways.

In their most recent incarnation, I split them up. One bunch created a lamp-and-snack-holding side table beside the movie-watching couch downstairs. Another bunch is inconspicuously hanging out behind the drafting table. And this bunch is providing a spot of color at the foot of the stairs.

What better way to be creative?

Take one ‘problem.’

Use the raw materials at your disposal.

Create something functional AND pleasing to the eye,

not to mention smile-inducing,

and voila.

Creativity.

Easy peasy.

Month #11 of Extreme Self-Care

Oh me, oh my, this month’s homework is going to be fun!

The title of the second last chapter in Cheryl’s book,

is “Wake Up!”

According to Cheryl, as we ‘grow up,’ we get so enmeshed in the busyness and stress of our daily lives that we lose sight of what truly makes us happy. It’s like some devious demon godmother casts a spell that slowly puts to sleep all of the interests and desires, dreams and aspirations that, once upon a time, made us keen to explore and experience our world.

The more we age, the more responsibilities we shoulder, the more we become entrenched in the same patterns and ways of being modelled by the adults around us, the more deeply buried are those things that bring us joy.

Raise your hand, please, if you had the model of an adult in your life who allowed themselves the genuine happiness that comes from unabashedly doing what they loved.

Fully.

Not just cramming it in somewhere in an elusive free moment.

And without guilt.

Or censure from others.

I’d be willing to bet there aren’t many hands up right now.

Which means there aren’t too many healthy models to emulate.

So we may need to follow Cheryl’s example and do some excavation.

Cheryl Richardson’s hope is that the previous ten months of Extreme Self-Care homework has resulted in an increase of time, space and energy in our lives so that we can begin to enjoy those things that bring us real joy and meaning. 

She tells a fun story about rediscovering her buried passion for fashion and design. Reintegrating that passion into her life did not mean she had to stop everything else and dedicate her life to this one thing. It meant giving a forgotten part of herself the permission to wake up and be expressed, therefore enriching the rest of her life.

This was reassuring to read. I always thought that anything I was passionate about had to be parlayed into my life’s work. It’s refreshing (and a little daunting) to think about it, instead, as my life’s play.

This month’s homework is two-fold:

Step One, go on a treasure hunt.

Start with your five senses. Pay attention to those things you love to see, hear, touch, taste, or smell. And I would add the sixth sense to the list: those things that uplift you, that buzz with lightness and energy, that draw you into the zone where nothing else exists but what you are engaged in.

Then, see if you can find an object or a symbol that reflects that inner part of you that longs to be expressed. Notice the images in a store window, on the television, in a movie set, in a magazine or catalogue that catch your eye or pull at your heart. Sometimes some household archeology will help to reveal a hidden part of you. Check your closets, seldom opened drawers, basement boxes, anywhere where you might have hidden away your interests while you dealt with the monumental task of day-to-day living.

Once you have an item or image or symbol, bring it into your life somehow. If it’s an object, display it. Same if it’s a photo. If you have neither an object nor a photo, go online to search for an image that portrays what you are looking for.

And then talk to it.

“________, what do you want to tell me?”

Or if talking to an inanimate object is too woo woo for you then try some third person musing: “If this image or object could speak, what would it tell me?”

And then write down whatever occurs to you.

DO NOT CENSOR YOURSELF! Just write what comes.

Another cool thing I would suggest–and here you really do have to suspend your disbelief–is to have a conversation with the object. Write the question with your dominant hand (the one you usually write with) and then transfer your pen to your non-dominant hand so the object can answer. Be prepared. If you like things neat and tidy, this might not be for you. The answer will be scrawled in a child-like, sometimes illegible hand because, after all, this hand doesn’t often get to take hold of the pen. But I promise you, if you suspend your judgements and try this, you will be amazed by the answers that appear.

(If this intrigues you, there’s a really cool book about this called The Power of Your Other Hand by Lucia Cappacchione.)

Step Two, once you’ve uncovered this sleeping part of you, do something to wake it up.

When Cheryl woke up to her inner fashionista she did several things to nourish it. She went shopping at a fabric store with her seamstress cousin to learn about fabrics and sewing tools and buy some material to make a duvet cover. She toured the Boston School of Fashion Design. She spent an afternoon with scissors and fashion magazines, cutting out images she loved (something, incidentally, that she used to do as a child) (which, of course, is another clue to buried passions. What did you used to do as an eleven year old?). She created a treasure map of those collected images along with motivational messages to keep her pursuing this passion.

Sounds like fun, eh?

Go on a Treasure Hunt and then . . . play.

Hmmmm. Play and more play followed by play.

On second thought, this may be way harder than I thought.

Guess we’ll know for sure by the end of the month.

See you then!

Wrapping Up Month #10 of Extreme Self-Care

I have what is often referred to as a short fuse–easily irritated, quick to anger–so, at first glance, I thought I’d have lots of opportunities to practice this month’s Extreme Self-Care homework.

And then I thought, Maybe not.

Anger has been a lifelong companion,

but lately we’ve come to an agreement, of sorts.

For years, it was directed inward at myself and never allowed outward expression. So it donned another mask and presented itself as depression. Once I made that connection, and started giving voice to my anger, the pendulum swung as far in the opposite direction as it could go. I became a walking volcano with no tools to deal with its eruption. Any little thing could, and did, set me off.

It was a struggle to learn how to appropriately express my anger without decapitating the people around me and, of course, the people most in danger of losing their heads were the ones closest to me. Because I had so many years of practice internalizing it, it was easy for me to just swallow it when dealing with the world at large (and that, I think was the purpose of Cheryl’s homework this month). Not so, for my husband and sons.

It’s no secret in our household that Mama has a hard time with anger. My sons–who ultimately provided me with the biggest incentive to change–have followed me on this particular strand of my journey since birth. I used to wallow in guilt every time I messed up, but I’ve come to trust that there’s a reason they chose me for their mother.

Maybe they’ve learned more by watching me struggle–walk, fall in the hole, climb back out, apologize, start walking again–and continually strive to do things differently than if I had always been a peaceful, serene Madonna.

It reminds me of my favourite childhood book, Little Women. The mother in that story, Marmee, is the epitome of grace and patience and forebearance. Both Jo (my favourite character, who struggled to control her own impestuous nature) and I were surprised to learn that Marmee was not always so loving and compassionate. It had taken a lifetime of consciously curbing her own sharp tongue to get to that place of consistent gentleness.

I think Jo (look at me, talking about these characters as if they are real people!) benefited more from learning that tidbit about her mother than she did by feeling guilty about never measuring up to her mother’s shining example. Likewise, maybe my sons have learned more by watching my struggle than by being presented with flawless perfection every day of their life.

That’s what I tell myself anyway.

Anyway . . . as I said . . . I’ve been working on this anger thing for some time. And, lately, I’ve been thinking maybe I’d reached a tipping point. Maybe, all those years of work had paid off and I’d become more Marmee-like in my day to day life. Maybe I wouldn’t have many occasions this month to put Cheryl Richardson’s homework to the test.

And I was right.

I was moving peacefully through the month.

Until the day everything fell apart.

Everything made me mad.

Every little thing.

All day long.

And forget about handling it gracefully. I was all snark and snarl.

It finally came to a head at dinner where I sat stewing under my own personal thundercloud. I opened my mouth to reprimand my younger son and my older son’s face flashed before my eyes.

I managed to snap my mouth shut before the darts left my tongue.

And burst into tears.

Stephen and Jacob looked at me and then at each other, eyebrows raised in that familiar ‘what’s-going-on-with-Mom?’ look and, between sobs, I managed to blurt out,

I miss Gabriel.

And as I allowed myself to feel and express the pain of all that missing, the anger melted away.

So my take-away from this month’s Extreme Self-Care homework is this:

Yes, it’s good to stand up for yourself when someone hurts you in some way or cuts into line ahead of you or says something hurtful

AND

sometimes that flash of anger is hiding something else entirely.

In fact, anger often masquerades as something else. For years, it presented itself as depression for me which, for a woman, was more socially acceptable than spewing venom at anyone within spitting distance.

It seems that anger is a more acceptable emotion for men to express so it’s easy for it to become their go-to emotion. Sadness feels icky and weak. And let’s not forget that ‘big boys don’t cry.’  It’s much more comfortable to lash out in anger than truly feel the emotional pain of grief, for example.

Yet, sometimes, being with the anger

maybe even asking a question or two

Anger, what are you hiding?

or

Anger, what are you trying to show me?

will lead to new revelations about what’s really going on beneath the surface flash.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But it’s worth a look.