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JD's Midlife Tools For Living Practices, LLC
My mom invented this wonderful tomato macaroni and cheese dish when I was a kid that she would bake up for supper. It is a fond favorite of mine and also for my sister.
Mom baked some up the other night for me during my visit. And yum! Savoring the taste brought back fond memories as it filled my tummy full. She topped dinner off with the “best in the world” apple pie that she bakes too. I was in gastronomical heaven!
Food has such a way of imprinting our memory and bringing us back home.
As we move into this holiday season we will be remembering holiday’s of the past as we ready ourselves for this season’s memories in the making. Much of those memories will involve foods we delight in serving and savoring with those we love the most.
Certain foods just wouldn’t be right to miss experiencing in any given holiday season. There are those favorite pies that just have to be made for Thanksgiving and favorite cookies for Christmas to bake and enjoy. Oh, and then there is that green bean casserole that is a must to put on the table too.
As I write this my mind is transported to times I enjoyed those very taste sensations. And I am back home again in my memory. It feels safe and warm.
Not only the food but also those fond memories nourish our body and spirit.
Our memory is a tool we can use to provide us comfort. A hot cup of tea and an afghan can provide this too.
We need to nourish our spirits as much as we need to give our body nourishment to sustain our lives.
As we enter this up coming season it can be challenging to get ‘er all done, let alone find time and energy to relax and comfort our spirit. However, we can make the choice to pause, reflect and allow ourselves to breathe if we make an intention to do so each day. This could be the best gift we receive this season and one that no one else can give to us. We can learn to bring ourselves back home.
What memories bring you back home and nourish your spirit?
Since my dad died I have noticed myself reflecting back on various times of my life in a way that I have not done before. These memories serve various purposes so does my reflection into them one being the important function of comfort. It is interesting just how much comfort they bring actually—peacefulness comes over me as I look back.
My memories are such a gift—don’t think I’ve appreciated this before now.
Several weeks ago I had the opportunity over coffee with a friend to recall some fond memories of my past. That conversation took me to re-read a book that I read when I was 16 or 17: The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung.
I had underlined lots in that book as a teen and I was pleased to see those same passages to be of importance yet at this age. That book has influenced me a great deal more than I’d ever realized.
Our life is definitely a sum of all that has come before us.
When I was in my 20’s I recall a conversation I had with a middle age family friend who was struggling with something that had happened to him. I remember saying clearly at such a young age that all I was on that day was based upon all that had happened to me before that day. I also recall having said that I wouldn’t be who I am and know what I know without having had all those experiences as well.
Such a wise young woman I was to know that with such little life experience under my belt at that time too!
There have been other crystal clear moments of knowing this fact along my life’s path too. Many of those times have been when I was facing a difficult passage in my life’s journey.
It seems at those times there is a wise voice inside that I know is helping to guide me. I am learning to pay up better attention to this wise voice as I get older too.
During that conversation over coffee with my friend I recalled thoughts of ice skating and my dreams of being Peggy Fleming the second—made me smile. I was inspired to pick up my Jung book still treasured and on my book shelf and poked my nose into it once again.
And, as I read it I realize yet again that my past has in deed shaped me to be all who I am in this very moment! Ain’t life grand!
What experiences and books have been influential to you along your life’s journey?
It is a gorgeous sunny fall morning. The trees are glowing with color on our street as the sun illuminates their leaves. Most of the trees near us are boasting my very favorite color: yellow. How can I not enjoy that!
I am fortunate to live in a wooded area out a bit from town. We chose this space to purposefully be nestled in the woods. My surroundings have always been important to me.
The outdoors is where I can most easily center myself.
My husband and I enjoyed a long walk in the woods yesterday at a state park an hour and a half north in a community we once lived. It has been a place we have gravitated to since very early in our relationship. It feels a bit like home there.
In the many journeys’ our lives have traversed, we’ve found ourselves going back there for a bit of respite. It could be for an afternoon on the shores of Lake Michigan, a long walk on the trails in the woods or a weekend camping trip. That is where many of our conversations involving questions about the future, thoughts about life challenges and obstacles, and celebrations of surviving difficult times have taken place.
There is a comfort having those conversations in the midst of tranquil surroundings.
The colors of fall are a gift to enjoy and to be grateful for too. There is beauty in every season when we allow ourselves the opportunity to pause and reflect and soak it in.
There are gifts to enjoy and be grateful for in every season of our lives as well.
Having weathered through many life seasons, challenges, and celebrations we know in this midlife that life goes on and we do too. We have experience to draw on and know so more about ourselves. We recognize more readily that things work out just as they are meant to do. We’ve learned so much about life.
Our lives have rich illuminating color in this fall season of our life! I am grateful for every one of those rich colors too!
What gifts are you grateful for in this fall season of your life?
For a good portion of my life I’ve fought with life when it didn’t match with what I wanted. I demanded in my own head that other people change or wanted a situation to be different insisting only then could I be content. In doing this, I created internal tension for myself.
Life is what it is, so are people.
My thinking errors set me up for unhappiness. The only one I have control over is me.
I have found a few books that have helped inspire me on my journey. The one I am re-reading currently for the umpteen time is by Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special Living Zen.
“If we are totally what we are, in every second, we begin to experience life as joy”, Beck says.
I don’t really like it when fall turns to grey dreary days and yet when I look deeper into those grey clouds I see rich shades of color outlines and shadows. And against that darker back ground the orange, red, yellow, green trees are more vibrant and light up the landscape. Without this season change and all it brings I would miss this rich experience.
Whether I like what is happening or not, life goes on either way.
When I remain open, accepting and grateful of all that is, I see so much more in the world around me. This brings contentment and peace for I am connecting to and not separating myself from that which is.
Over time I am learning how to better relax into what is and more about that joy that Ms. Beck speaks of. I keep practicing and I keep learning. Life is full of opportunity for that!
How do you fight with what is?
“Grief calls us to open our heart in hell” according to Stephen Levine who works with the grieving.
For the last couple of weeks, I found myself to be out of sorts, kind of cranky and impatient at times, very sad and more tearful than I have been, and in need at moments of being left alone. A part of me has just wanted to sit someplace and stare.
The night before the anniversary of my dad’s death, I was taken-a-back a moment at the dinner table when I looked at my sister, mom and Uncle and painfully realized that my dad was missing. It didn’t seem right. It took my breath away. A part of me had been waiting for him to come back home.
I don’t recall having had that kind of recognition so keenly before. Our bodies have such a wonderful way of providing a numbing anesthesia at the onset of a loss which gradually subsides as time marches forward.
I know my grief is far from over and I won’t ever have that work finished. Our grief is a way we honor the relationship we have had with the person we have lost along side honoring our own selves and our feelings and needs.
I write in a journal which has been a helpful tool for me for years. It helps not only to write but to look back on what I’ve written.
My pain last fall was raw and new. Since then it has become more familiar. This loss will be with me forever and is what I will be working to integrate into who I am. I will be learning more of what this loss means to and for me as my life moves forward.
A loss anniversary is an opportunities to pause, to honor and to work on our grief yet more.
What are you learning in your grief work?.
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Grief Therapy can help work through the pain of loss anniversaries.
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Dear Dad-
A year ago today I never imagined upon seeing you safely home after your surgery that it would be the very last time I would ever be able to talk with you. I never dreamed that five days later I’d be back in time to be with you as you took your very last breath.
It has been a sad day, gloomy inside and out today. I miss you. I miss hearing your stories of the past and your laugh. I miss getting a hug from you.
It still is so very hard to believe some moments that you have died. I wish it weren’t true. I wish I could go back in time and have you in my life all over again. I wish I could savor every single moment I had with you knowing now what it is like that you are gone.
I have a few special things you gave me sitting on my dresser—a chocolate filled teddy bear, a valentine kitty cat, the cat doll you so proudly found and brought back from a trip after your stroke. These gifts mean so much more to me now than they even did the days you gave them to me.
I still have that big black and white teddy bear you gave me as a baby sitting proudly on a chair. I know I was loved by you. I am grateful for all the ways I could count on you and all you gave to me.
I’ve learned much going through this last year without you. I know what it is like to lose a parent. In ways the anticipation was worse than the actual event.
I know what it is like to sit with someone as they go about the process of dying. I was somehow able to find the strength to tell you it was ok for you to go. I know in my heart it was your time. I’ve been able to let go of some of my need for control.
I know it is important to pay up attention to the moments that we have in life and to enjoy the people who matter the most to us for we just never never know when the very last day we have with them will be.
Thank you for being such a good dad to me!
I love you-
Jude
Do Contact Me
Grief Therapy can help you explore tools to work through the pain grief brings.
JD’s Midlife Tools For Living Practices, Holland, MI Offering Heartfelt care, Compassion and Coping Tools!
My dear little cat Dunkin has a tenacious way of getting her needs met. When she wants attention she will not give up pestering us for head rubs or one on one play with her. And she does it in such ways that it is difficult not to give her that badly needed attention.
It occurs to me that Dunkin is not unlike other aspects of life that reach out and grab hold in need of my attention. I am however not always so readily willing to provide my attention to what is reaching for it. And generally when this happens life does not go so well.
This includes when Dunkin has needs that get ignored for longer than she wants them too—I get to pick up things she pushes off counters or tables or might even get a finger bit.
Probably since I was injured as a preteen doing hand stands in the front yard, I have had a habit of raising my right shoulder blade. I didn’t even realize I was doing that until this year when the osteophyte in my spine began causing me pain in my upper back, neck and right shoulder area, my hand started briefly going numb and I lost strength in that hand.
I’ve been doing physical therapy for months working out the kinks and training my muscles to hold my posture in ways that help rather than hurt me. I am also having that shoulder taped down to help remind me and train those muscles to not hike upwards. I like to boast I’ve found a new use for duck tape—I just have to find humor in life!
It is not easy altering years and years of habits.
Just recently I’ve wondered if part of my shoulder raising habit has been in reaction to stress as well. I think I am accurate because my intentional practice of taking breaths during the day, relaxing and noticing muscle tension have helped improve that neck, back and shoulder of mine.
Pain has a way of getting our attention in ways that is harder to ignore.
As I look backwards, I can see there have been other signals to me suggesting I needed to better learn to relax my mind and body that I have ignored over the years.
It is generally a pleasant experience playing or loving up Dunkin once I submit to her need. It certainly is better when I recognize my own unmet need and give it to myself. When I don’t pay up attention it costs me in the long run.
Dear little Dunkin I am learning so much from living live with you! Who would have thought!
What helps you pay up attention to your unmet needs?
There is only one more official day of the summer season before fall officially starts on the 23rd. It sure looks and feels like fall outside and I must say inside too. I sit in long sleeves and pants as I write. The days are getting shorter by three minutes each day so I am told. I am getting up way before the sun does now.
I did finish “Anne Of Green Gables” by L. M. Montgomery as I wanted to do before summer officially ended. This is such a delightful book and one that I so enjoy for a good summer read over and over and over again. Anne is so spirited and so much her own person. She is delightful to experience.
I have an iPhone and yesterday there was a new software update to it. I am a technology idiot as I lovingly refer to myself with a smile. I know just enough to be dangerous and not enough to figure too many things out. So, often I end up frustrated beyond reason. It is at those moments I hate technology as well as myself for knowing so little. Those are not pretty moments for me I assure you.
This morning while I was texting, which I once swore I would never do, the software updated keyboard suddenly reverted back to the old version. I had just been enjoying how it was reading my mind offering me words I could select from to add to my message, too. For the life of me I could not figure out how to fix it.
I hate that. I want so badly to figure things out for myself. When I am able to figure out a simple little problem I am rather pleased with myself too.
That didn’t happen this morning and I ended up in tears. Fortunately I have my very own personal ‘help desk’ at home and my tech savvy husband once again came to my rescue. It was through dumb luck that he fixed it but he is knowledgeable enough to be willing to hit buttons I fear could destroy mankind in doing.
Still after 20 years of using computer devices I am fearful of breaking the darn things by pushing the wrong button! Technology is not my gift.
Which brings me back to “Anne Of Green Gables” where life was without technology and I can fantasize that life was once simpler and at least for a spell I can bury myself in my illusions of yesteryear. Perhaps this is why I’ve repeatedly enjoyed this delightful summer read.
In reality I know life was not simpler at all and that I would not last long without all the modern conveniences I have at my disposal including that darn phone. I just wonder what Anne would do with an iPhone! Hummmm….
What are some of your favorite books to read over and over again? What is it that makes them so important to you?
I have a cat helper today. McAllister is sitting here with me, rubbing her chin on the screen in want of attention or food or both. And of course as cats do, she won’t cooperate easily to let me take a cute picture of her.
It is a lovely cool fall like day. We went to the Farmers Market this morning and found some local fruit and veggies as well as a rainbow in the sky. I haven’t seen one of those in awhile.
The sun this time of year is bright here in a different way then during the summer. I am sure it has to do with the angle we are at and distance from the sun itself. I want to learn more some day.
I have a list in my head of all those things I hope to learn more about when retirement finds me. I can’t imagine what that is like to have time to do as my heart desires in any given day at the pace I want to do it at too. Right now that seems so very far from the pace life seems to flow.
I know my current pace is impacted by some body parts that get sore and tired and don’t exactly work in the same way they once did. Things seem to take me longer to do. I don’t have the same amount of energy I once did either.
Unfortunately, I haven’t grasped on to that reality in my expectations of me on many days. I want to do more than I have the time and energy to do and then I get cranky and tired and it shows mostly to my husband. He has saintly patience with me. I am grateful. I am regretful too. It would be best if I could practice the art of pacing myself in line with reality more often.
In my head I am still in my 20’s in many ways. My body says differently. My experience in life says so too. I really wouldn’t like to be back in my 20’s again. I’ve learned so much since then. It is not easy to be a young adult starting out. It wasn’t when I was there back in the 70’s and 80’s. I know it is even more challenging getting started these days than it was for me. The world has changed so.
So the world and I aren’t the same. We never are the same, time and life itself changes us each and every day. This is the way of life itself.
And McAllister has moved on to find a lap for a little nap. Ah, I could learn so much more from her too!
What limits does your body have that you need to accept and accommodate into your daily life?
It feels like I’ve joined this club over the last eleven months that consists of zillions of us who have lost a parent. It is a very different sense inside not having a father in the flesh anymore. I imagine that sense is even more profound when both parents are gone—an orphan sense must come forth inside. That thought feels very sad.
My heart goes out even more keenly to those I know and will come to know who have lost a parent or both at young ages. I can’t imagine how challenging it would have been for me to have not had my dad until my 57th year of life.
There is a greater sense of the finality of life looming on the horizon of my consciousness and the reality that I am moving closer towards it for my own life’s ending is there too. I see more keenly that I am the next generation to grow old. My body is beginning to tell me this too. I don’t rest there too long in the thoughts but it does make a presence albeit fleeting.
And of course, as I do, I wrestle with all this reality. I have to work hard to radically accept that which is in my life to live it as it is. I want things my way. But I do practice by noticing my thoughts as best I can and try to be kind with my ego when she wants what she wants and not what is. Life is an everyday work in process. Accepting loss is too. And so am I!
Right now in this moment what life reality are your thoughts challenging you to accept?
Do Contact Me . With Grief Therapy we can begin to practice acceptance of our losses.
JD’s Midlife Tools For Living Practices, Holland, MI Offering Heartfelt care, Compassion and Coping Tools!
I have fond memories of summer holidays from my childhood. My parents made them special. Mom really worked at it in the planning part and Dad went along in the work part of it. We had people over often or went places. Holidays were a time to share with others.
Labor Day memories generally involved a rainy day, at least the more memorable ones. I recall being up north bored to tears in a cabin in the rain as a teen. But then perhaps any sort of weather at that point of time would have produced boredom for my teenage self! It was far less about the weather and far more about who was missing from the experience namely any of my friends.
I also remember watching for seemingly days the Jerry Lewis Tel-a-thon…remember that?! It was on like every station and back then we only had 3 stations plus PBS. One year I got a kit from the Jerry Lewis people to raise money and recall making rather involved plans for a show for the neighborhood. It never came about but did fill hours of my summer dreaming and scheming about it.
This day officially ends the summer season of play with school starting up for some all ready and for others tomorrow. I always enjoyed the start of school. I still love to look at all the school supplies in the stores this time of year. It was so fun to get new supplies and play with them before school started. The smell of a fresh box of crayons delights me and brings back wonderful memories. Getting one of those big boxes of Crayola’s with a sharpener included was a big deal in my family that didn’t happen very often.
My fondest memories of summer in my adult life involve time spent camping or at the Lake Michigan shore. These include my dear husband. I have wonderful memories of special times being with others and quiet times with just the two of us too.
Yesterday for the first time this season we went up north to our favorite beach on Lake Michigan and sat at the shore. I so badly needed to soak up the waves and allowed them to help my body breathe once again.
And, I finally was able to see a sunset over the Lake too! It was an intention of mine to give that to myself this summer at least once. Gratefully I did just that.
I am a clinger, a hanger on-er who likes to grab hold of something and does not want to see it end. And of course that means I am wrestling in ways with this day being the official end of the summer season of play.
It is supposed to rain later today…I just may have to turn on the TV and see if I can find the Jerry Lewis Tel-a-thon for old time’s sake!
What are some special summer memories you hold close to your heart?
In my daily work as a therapist I bare witness to the pain, suffering in the life stories of the courageous people who are in my office. I am truly honored to hear these stories that are being entrusted to me.
After years of working in this field I have heard a multitude of different traumatic events and have come to know this as a gift of my work. Many days of the week I am touched deeply in this process and step back with gratitude for the life story I alone bare.
This week on the evening news I learned of a tragic incident in Arizona involving a nine year old girl and an automatic machine gun. For her family, a fun family outing involved going to a shooting range and firing weapons into the desert that a “family oriented” range offers. The man who was assisting her was shot and killed. It was an accident.
This story on the news hit me hard. I know all too well from my work that this event has altered the course of this girls life forever. She lost her innocence the moment her family walked into that place.
When I was nine I was deeply involved in playing with Barbie, spent time in the sand box, enjoyed going to amusement parks with my family, made snowman, loved to ice skate. I am most grateful for the childhood innocence and this joy I have been given. The memories are sweet to recall.
My parents made all kinds of mistakes in their job as parents. All parents do. Some mistakes of judgment our parents make have more dramatic impacts on us than others.
The parental mistaken judgment for this girl in Arizona is one that is reflective of our cultures infatuation with guns. We need to protect our children’s right to experience childhood innocence. Her parents and this business establishment did not.
People use guns for acts that by design are violent or aggressive. Guns are made to hurt and kill people and animals and these are acts of aggression or violence. There are times when guns are required to be a part of someone’s life experience and when aggression and violent acts are required to sustain life itself.
Guns are not toys. To pretend by “playing” with a gun creates a false understanding of the power and respect that one needs to have of such a weapon.
According to The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence:
-Everyday on average 45 people are shot or killed in an accident with a gun
-One in three people in the US know someone who has been shot
-In 2007, more pre-school-aged children (85) were killed by guns than police officers were killed in the line of duty
-More than one in five U.S. teenagers (ages 14 to 17) report having witnessed a shooting
-The lifetime medical cost for all gun violence victims in the United States is estimated at $2.3 billion, with almost half the costs borne by taxpayers
These are only a few of the staggering impacts that gun violence has on our culture. That little girl in Arizona will never be the same. We can add her trauma and a life time of guilt, nightmares, anxiety she and her parents will endure to those statistics.
This senseless violent act could be prevented in the future if we as a culture stop insisting that the second amendment is still a right we must carry into our daily lives and realize that the right to life itself is above all most important. I believe that was the true reason for our founding fathers placement of the second amendment into our Nations constitution. We were fighting for a new life itself at that time of our history.
At this time however in our Nation’s history, we can make a choice to turn our attention to a fight for the right to not bare witness to death and violence in our own backyards, give our children back the childhood innocence they need and deserve, and live life in peace. Will you join with me?
What can you do in your daily life to speak out about your right to live your life in peace and protect your children’s right to a childhood of innocence?
