Mining Nuggets

Transitions

Quote of the day:

"The point about retirement is not to clutter it up with too many activities." [Said a friend to me a few months ago]

Transitions. Ten minutes - GO!

Work was about developing an identity. Is retirement a transition to developing a different identity? What is a transition anyway? It is defined as moving from one stage to another. As change. Change takes time. Do I have the time? Time feels so fleeting to me now. I hear about people close to my age dying, and I wonder if that will be me suddenly. Will people notice? Will they miss me? Will I have been of some worth to them when I was alive? I sense the redundancy of me during this coming period. I once was - but now I am no more. So is my work the only part about me that makes me worthwhile? Transition from one stage to another. From hard work to time on my hands. What do I want to do? What will make me happy - bring me joy? Travel to a beautiful garden perhaps, or seeing old friends. Am wary of nostalgia because that's not reality either. Reality is living in the moment. Holding still with difficult or uncomfortable feelings and not rushing to the iPhone or TV, or eating so as not to feel them, for distraction. Reading is distraction too. Is distraction such a bad thing? After all, could we survive if we always and only held still with uncomfortable emotions? Perhaps we could survive better? Who knows? Have I ever really tried it? I mean - really? Being in the now of it instead of running for my life from it? This is going to be the challenge this transition. Having the time to be with me, and not be distracted by a million different things. Getting to know me: what I like, what I want, and how I feel. 

This is probably what I fear most about retirement. 

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Accompanying me into the New Year

The luck of a hawk

Today is my last day of teaching classes. It feels strange. While I am sad to be leaving this place where I have loved working these past thirteen years, I am excited and anxious to begin the next phase of life's journey. During an advisement session with our accountant last week, the director of the organization stopped by to meet us. As he was leaving he said to me, "Congratulations! This is a great achievement." I teared up. I hadn't quite thought of retirement as an achievement. I realized he meant the achievement was arriving at this moment after a full life time of working outside the home. It moved me. I simply had not been expecting this transition period to be so emotional. I must have been in denial up until now.

Or, perhaps, I had just become really good at living in the moment. And now the moment is in the leaving and reimagining of the rest of my life!

I had settled into my office to grade papers before my last class was to begin when suddenly a couple of colleagues called out to me to hurry to their office. I dropped everything and ran to them worried something was wrong. There, on a light post directly outside the window, perched a large hawk. He sat straight up looking around as if he owned the place, confident and unafraid of humans in the area. We all gasped out loud about him and wondered at his magnificence. We stood around watching and observing, chatting excitedly. One of my colleagues took a photograph and as we explored how to upload it to Twitter, just like that, the hawk took off and flew away swooping low to the ground and then up into the sky. It was then that I noticed his brilliant red-tail. "It is a red-tail!" I exclaimed.

My colleague looked at me with a smile. "I feel this is like a lucky moment," she said. I agreed. "Yes," I observed, "I think it is very auspicious. I looked up what a hawk might represent in Native American culture. It read: Hawks are often seen as a symbol of power in Native American cultures. Like eagles, they are symbols of courage and strength.  At another website they described the meaning and symbolism of the hawk as: Hawk is often a messenger from Angels, Devas and the Divine. He signals a time in your life when you need to focus on what's ahead and prepare for a leadership role. Your global vision is a potent helpmate in this. Just as the Hawk, you are ready to fly higher than ever before.

Very auspicious indeed, I thought. Time to write down my third "Lucky luck!"

Another lucky luck

How lucky I am to have the therapist I have. I realized this morning that I love going to therapy. It is almost always enlightening and revealing even though confronting my Self can be uncomfortable and painful at times. I have been going to therapy on and off for almost all my adult life, and have had a number of therapists - some quite good.

For the past many years, I have been going weekly to my current therapist and even dedicated my book to him. His is consistent, experienced, and professional, but more importantly he is smart and has a sense of humor. During this morning's session he responded to a couple of things I said in a way that literally caused me to gasp out loud because of how perfectly his comments hit the spot, and spoke directly to what I had never thought of before. Revelations! 

I stumbled out of his office literally gasping for breath - gob-smacked, and wept with gratitude as I drove toward the coffee shop to write this down. All I could think of as tears spilled down my cheeks was how lucky I am to have him in my life, and how lucky I am to keep on discovering new things about who I am and how I came to be me. I thought about how doing this self-work opens and frees me up to new ways of perceiving my interactions and relationships.

It makes me realize that I have choices, where I hadn't noticed them before. It is almost as if I am being freed from prison, from the shackles of my mind. I imagine that as the days pass, I will lose this feeling of gratitude and slip back into the old, brain-washed, emotional habits of my childhood. Discovering luck is in the moment. And, for now, I am writing this down so that I might hold onto it for awhile longer than a moment.

Lucky luck

Okay ... so I have decided to start keeping a "luck diary." The idea being that I must write daily about one or two small things that I consider positively lucky. I thought I might try it for just one week. After that I think it might become too much of a chore and could feel boring. This is a bit of a side track to my usual type of blog posts, and already I am feeling a little weird about it. It seems superficial and cutesy. But, why not seize the opportunity? as Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK  suggests lucky people do. I mean, I must admit that I consider myself lucky most of my life, and it is true that I have seized all kinds of opportunities (and still do) even though some of them didn't/don't always have positive outcomes, although many did.              

For example, when people invite me to present, I usually say yes right away even if the travel to them is inconvenient and anxiety producing, or if they can't pay me very much money for my services. Invariably, the experiences are positive and worthwhile. I learn so much from everyone wherever I travel, and am able to impart my concerns and ideas about treating children with kindness and compassion. There are always one or two people who get what I am talking about, and I feel so grateful that even one child's emotional life may be improved by my having seized that opportunity.

However, I think the purpose of this type of luck diary is more about small things that happen day to day that might go by unnoticed if I don't allow myself to quietly focus through the blur of the busyness of hundreds of moments to notice them.

So, here goes: last night we went to a friend for dinner before setting out to see a show together. The dinner was delicious and the company warm and stimulating. Time passed by and we realized that we had very little time to get to the theater. We sped down the stairs to the car, climbed in and drove as fast as we could given the small side streets, traffic lights, and dark, rainy night. As we approached the theater we worried they would not allow us into the first act if we were late, and it looked as if it would take time to find parking. Suddenly we noticed a parking spot directly in front of the theater door - a sidewalk away. Tom deftly maneuvered the car into the tiny patch close to the sidewalk. We opened the car doors and spilled out into the theater, where we were rushed to our seats in time for the show to begin.

Our friend called that parking karma.

A year ago at Mining Nuggets: Rambling