I'm so happy I'm finally enlightened. Really.
Just overflowing with gratitude that it took this long.
Tofu burger anyone?
For a number of days I've been trying to write a follow-up post to the one I wrote about being 51, single, and terrified of mingling. In the piece, I talked about how hard it's been to find my swagger, when the truth of the matter is, I'm having a hard time accepting and navigating how provocative and revolutionary I feel.
I don't mean to sound arrogant writing that, but I also don't want to play small anymore and it's become a strange, emotional balancing act.
The wrench in this whole thing is turning 51. It's sucking me down.
Do I accept that I need to water down the full strength of who I am so others feel better about their lack of accepting their own secretly wild natures? Or am I inspiring them by being who I am? Am I being narcissistic? Am I avoiding accepting my age while simultaneously transcending it? Have I been listening to way too much 57-year-old Madonna?
There is a middle ground here, and it has nothing to do with other people, and everything do with my boundary issues. It's like navigating downward dog on a Slip 'N Slide.
I've been single for five years and was in a relationship for over 12 years. In those 12 years, I was extremely subservient. I acted like Donna Reed with a potty mouth.
I didn't feel emotionally strong enough to get the success I wanted. There was also the worthy thing mixed in there. So I played the part I learned from my mother, which was to be a martyr, cry into my wine at night about how my life wasn't working out, while also keeping a clean house and making dinner each night. #classic
My partner at the time often said to me, "You aren't strong enough for the kind of success you want. You won't survive in that world. You're too sensitive, honey." I agreed with him and then said something funny and cute and twirled about in my Poodle Skirt and pulled the pot roast out of the oven.
I don't entirely blame him. He said what he said only because I made it so easy for him. Sure, he could have been nicer, but he had his own emotional crap to deal with. He married his father, I married my mother... #classicagain.
What's happening now is I'm having a difficult time exalting my feelings of radicalness. Hasn't that ship sailed? I'm filled with a nearly unmanageable rage it's taken me 51 years to get here.
Am I the only one who finds late life enlightenment the most annoying thing on the planet?
My shrink tells me, "Well, at least you've made it here. That's something, right?"
I feel bad when I tell him that doesn't give me much comfort. It's like I'm too stubborn to appreciate how far I've come. All I can think about is, "Why did it take this long?" It's been keeping me up nights, which has resulted in a very clean fridge and bathroom, sure, but it's not exactly helping me build my empire.
A friend of mine who's a very famous coach for actors, told me over organic chicken with organic broccoli (no carbs!), "You've made it. You've arrived. Stop with this whole desperate thing. It ain't working."
That knocked me out because A) He was right and B) It pissed me off because he was so right and C) He told me this because he recently turned 53 and finally gets that the journey matters as much (or even more so?) than the destination (yes, that's annoying, and yes, it's #everything).
In the midst of endlessly rewriting this post, a coaching client forwarded me an email I sent to them in early August. I had forgotten about it. They said the email was pivotal in helping them score deal a big deal that got them a boatload of money.
I read it and I thought, "I wrote that?" And then I thought, "I wrote that."
To paraphrase (edited to take out personal information on behalf of the client):
Adversity is what we all want because it's the ideal reminder that we are meant to live in the opposite, which is the graceful alignment with our true Higher Self. It took me a very long time to accept adversity, and to this day, when I have a difficult few days, or when I allow someone else's actions to affect my alignment, I have to step back and remind myself to chill out and appreciate the contrast.
Always remember during a hard moment: This too shall pass.
It's always the same: relinquish control of people or situations and focus solely on your emotional alignment. Harkin back to your moments of greatest clarity, i.e, the times in the past when you felt the most amazing. That is how you are meant to feel all the time. Everything else is crap.
The control of your life experience is entirely in your hands. You are meant to have everything you want. You just have to allow it. What an amazing insight.
Good advice, Michael. Maybe it's time to take it.
