I enjoy this quote from Fanny Brice. It is loaded, full of tale, and tickles my funny bone.   When I picture the image of losing ‘the pose’, it strikes me as being quite hilarious. It reminds me of a confession a friend and I shared in the park last summer.  Somehow we got on the topic of being slotted in the wrong roles and what that felt like.  For me, it all began in high-school.  When it came time to make a decision about what I wanted to be, and if I had been consulted, I would have indicated I wanted to be a teacher.  It was not to be.  Due to the circumstances of my life and legislated by ‘the powers that be’ it was decided that I ‘should’ be slotted into the ‘business and commerce’ program.

I vividly remember typing classes.  The aim in typewriting class was to achieve at least 60 words per minute. I managed to fake my way to that goal but there where many disasters  that ended up in the waste paper basket.     By the time I graduated, I thought ‘I should’ be a secretary.  I had no problem getting hired.  I could dazzle for the powers that be, but that’s where it ended. My incompetence in typing followed me where it had gone before – straight into the waste paper basket and in the process the only bliss was in my ignorance of how many trees I had leveled in the process.

When I confessed to my friend what had happened in my typing days, she also fessed up to her ingenuity of stuffing waste paper baskets with unacceptable secretarial fodder.  There was more.  As we were choking on our laughter and exaggerating the whole scenario of being in the wrong roles, another juicy piece of the story we had hidden away in the dark files of our closet for so many years came spilling out.  Not only had we successfully majored in stuffing waste paper baskets, but when those baskets become too embarrassingly full and there was no place to hide the rest of our burgeoning stash, we simply stuffed as much as we could in our purses and took them home to be disposed of.  No one on the bus ever noticed.   As my friend and I fell into a park bench exploding from uncontrollable laughter we wondered how many others held degrees in waste basket management.

Posing takes  energy. Too much energy.  You can only live a confiscated life for so long.  It takes too much to live a ‘should’ life.  It takes too much to ‘stuff’ purses.   Sooner or later you will confess under a spell of honesty in a park.  Sooner or later and at least by the time midlife arrives, a beseeching voice inside you will wail and cry, ‘Whose life are you living anyway’?  Sooner or later you will forget the pose and then where are you?  Thank ‘the powers that be’ for waste paper baskets.

Tips to Forget the Pose:

Tip # 1: Tune into what is right for you.

Tip # 2: How we see ourselves is a little behind where we actually are.

Tip # 3: Genuine self-expression never diminishes the creative space of others.

I am reminded of my own midlife volcanic eruption. All flights were cancelled. All of my life was put on hold. I had little warning. The only clues was a prolonged mood of restlessness and a fear of death and being alone. I resisted. In the end I was enticed out. I did not bother to stop and take a calculated risk. I simply went. Intuitively I went to the place of the west, the place where the sun sets and in symbolic meaning represents the ‘ending of things’. Intuitively, I went to the place of the water, which represents the symbol of ‘life’. In that place I would come to know the meaning of ‘you cannot live until you know how to die’.

From the ash heap, the phoenix rises. It comes from going alone into the flames, to burn away the illusions, and to rise from the ashes with the prize of one’s true self. Feng Shui Master, Lan Kan Chen wrote, ‘The phoenix with its great beauty, creates intense excitement and deathless inspiration’. It sheds light on the volcanic eruption and what comes from the ashes. It is about the events unfolding within. It is wounding and it is liberating. It comes with its underlying theme of birth and death, and redemption and evolution. We yield to its direction. The flight paths are open again. We take hold of our significance, our power and our ability to create. It is time to come home, to live in harmony with the powers that be.

Question: Share what is creating excitement and inspiration for you. What direction is it taking you? Iwould love to hear from you!

Kansas

In opening scenes of the Wizard of Oz we find an orphaned Dorothy living with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry in Kansas.  Dorothy is attempting to get the attention of her aunt and uncle because she is feeling threatened by teacher Miss Gulch who is threatening to hurt her dog Toto.   Even hired hands Zeke, Hunk and Hickory minimize her dilemma.

No one is listening.

In the opening scenes of our lives, we are given the seeds of the beautiful, divine and powerful aspects of personhood. As we grow we become shaped and defined with ideas, values and duties by the world around us from our parents, our teachers and our culture which is as it should be.  However, sometimes circumstances in life appear to derail us and we pick up messages that say we are not good enough; we are not ok, not worthy or deserving.  As life goes on our true identity becomes muffled by the sounds of busy making, of pleasing others, and aligning ourselves with the status quo.

We are no longer listening.

In the opening scenes of midlife crisis, our inner creative force is kicking up a fuss. It will no longer settle for less.  It refuses to play small.  It refuses to suffocate in the mediocre.  The orphaned pieces of ourselves we have discarded, devalued and find unacceptable are conspiring within.  They boil upwards until we can no longer keep the lid on them.  We can no longer grit our teeth and pretend all is well.  Counterfeit love notes are being swept away by the winds of change.  Our soul rummages through the drawers of our lives seeking the truth of our own authentic destiny.  The storm clouds are gathering with tornado warnings.   We see the funnel sweeping in our direction.

Now we are listening.

Tidbit:  The state motto for Kansas comes from the Latin, “Ad astra per aspera”, meaning ‘To the stars through difficulties’.

One of my favorite theme songs throughout my life has been, ‘To Dream the Impossible Dream’ from Man of LaMancha. In midlife, I can see evidence of it everywhere as I surround myself with circumstances and people that inspire my own dreams.

It shows up in the warm afterglow of the Olympic Games that just ended last week. I held my breath in the last hockey game between Canada and the United States and when it went into overtime, I put a blanket over my head because I just couldn’t look anymore. When Canada scored there was a gleeful phone exchange with one of my cherished American friends as we cajoled with each other about that heart stopping moment.

It shows up when one of my clients was celebrating the launching of my website and the branding of ‘the red shoe journey in midlife’. She gave me a gift that left me speechless and with it she wrote, “thank you for helping me to give myself permission to wear my own “red shoes” however impractical they may appear to others. I know that I need to be true to my own desires and passions to truly realize all I am meant to be. I will take the road less traveled in my red shoes!’

We all carry within us the Olympic heart. It’s a heart that asks to dream the impossible dream, to follow its own star, no matter how hopeless, no matter how far. It is in midlife the Olympic torch that touches our hearts and asks us to run where the brave dare not go, to be true to our own glorious quest. At first it is a whisper and when ignored becomes persistent, and when we attempt to shove it down it becomes downright bold and insistent threatening ‘overthrow’ if we do not heed its call.

It becomes a time of yielding to the power within even when arms become too weary and it feels like hell, but we know ‘its heavenly cause and that the world will be better for this’. It is for our having been there, for having taken our place at the table of life and for having taken the road less traveled that ‘dreams really do come true’. It is about stepping into ‘red shoes’.

P.S. When you have a moment, shoot me an email and tell me about ‘your impossible dream’. I would love to hear it! Jan

I have always loved red shoes.

I remember seeing a picture of red shoes in kindergarten and being mesmerized by them.  Now in  midlife I am drawn to red shoes once again. A part of midlife is revisiting those things you loved as a child.  They can hold clues and meanings long buried and repressed.  It is time to take out the red shoes and let them take us into the magic of midlife.

I have taken the theme of red shoes from the Wizard of Oz.  It was the magical tapping of the red shoes that brought meaning for Dorothy. In midlife a tapping begins in our hearts.  It can start as a restlessness spurning such questions as, ‘is this all there is?’

Midlife is the soul invitation to enter the miraculous journey on the ‘yellow brick road’. It all begins with a homesickness we can’t define except we feel that there is something missing, that there is something more. A wistful Dorothy begins to yearn for that place ‘over the rainbow where the dreams you dare to dream really do come true.’

I invite you to put on your red shoes and join me as we travel the yellow brick road of midlife because I have a feeling we ‘aren’t in Kansas anymore’.

Tip: The color red means fire, passion, vibrant life and symbolizes creative spirit.  Shoes protect and defend what we stand on, our convictions and the wherewithal to act on them.