WHOLEHEARTED LIVING - CULTIVATING AUTHENTICITY

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WHAT IS WHOLEHEARTED LIVING?

Brene Brown talks a lot about the concept of "Wholehearted Living" in her book "Daring Greatly" and to sum it up in a couple of sentences it means: Engaging in life from a place of belief in your own worthiness - cultivating courage, compassion, and connection. It also involves cultivating a sense of being "Enough" which is the the opposite to scarcity thinking - where we feel that we never have enough (especially compared to what we believe we see others having).

CULTIVATE is my Word of the Year for 2021 and Brene mentions Cultivating in her 10 Guideposts to Wholehearted Living from another of her books "The Gifts of Imperfection". Today I'm focusing on an area I've been working hard on over the last decade, and that's Cultivating Authenticity - and how it applies to Midlife and living our best life right now.
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COURAGE HAS CONSEQUENCES BUT PLAYING SAFE DOES TOO

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COURAGE HAS CONSEQUENCES

Making changes takes courage. No change comes without some kind of cost. Often to gain something you need to sacrifice something else in its place. It's been almost two years since I took my courage in both hands and wrote my letter of resignation from a job that had slowly become a nightmare. Anyone who read my blog through 2019 would know that I was at rock bottom and it took a lot of time and effort to get my resilience back.

What I found in the process is that having the courage to make a change will always have consequences - both good and bad. Looking back at the last two years I can see that there has been a huge shift in my thinking process and in my world view since I put in that resignation letter - and rode the waves of fallout that resulted.
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WHOLEHEARTED LIVING - CULTIVATING A POSITIVE MINDSET

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INTRO

Brene Brown's writing about Wholehearted Living and cultivating positives in our life is the inspiration behind my #WOTY "Cultivate" and I'm delighted to introduce my first guest blogger for the year who's sharing what she's cultivating in her life. Pat writes very thoughtful and well-researched posts on her blog Retirement Transition and she's sharing some of her story today about how she's progressing in her journey of getting to know herself and her strengths.

On that note, I'll hand you over to Pat....
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WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN YOU HEAR A "POP" IN YOUR CALF?

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HEARING A "POP" IN YOUR CALF

I'm no fitness fanatic and don't often experience muscle problems or injuries. I'm not a runner or a gym junkie, and my main way of staying healthy, fit, and mobile is to walk every day - aiming always for those magical 10,000 steps on my Fitbit - and generally enjoying being outside in the fresh air. I've taken my physical health for granted until something bizarre happened at the beginning of December.

We'd just returned from a lovely week of vacationing on the beach - bike riding, walking, and relaxing without a care in the world. Then, on my return home I bent down to pick up a box and as I straightened and turned, I heard a "POP" in the back of my left calf - I'm sure it was an audible pop, or maybe it was internally audible? Whatever, there was a "POP" and I knew that wasn't good.
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IT'S NEVER TOO LATE TO BUY A SCOOTER

Me on my scooter - it's never too late to find a new passion

JOY IN THE LITTLE THINGS

I read an interesting article recently about allowing yourself the pleasure of small joys. To let yourself feel excited about something - even if it seems a little bit ridiculous . When it comes to joy, Leslie Ralph says:

To begin, start by saying yes to yourself a little more. Yes to that little spark of curiosity, yes to that little smile that you shrug off, and definitely yes to that burning feeling inside your chest that screams, “Listen to this. This is joy.”

It doesn’t matter if it feels ridiculous, it doesn’t matter if it’s “wasting time,” and it sure doesn’t matter if you’re any good at it. What matters is the feeling you get when you do it.

 Those words sparked something in me - the new "Me" who is willing to cultivate experiences and ideas that enrich my life - and there was one "ridiculous" thing that had been sitting in the back of my mind for years - something I'd thought about and discarded many times. But with 60 looming on the horizon towards the end of this year, I had to ask myself "if not now, then when?"
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SUNSHINE, LOLLIPOPS AND RAINBOWS ~ WHAT'S MAKING ME HAPPY #5

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IT'S TIME TO BE HAPPY

December and Christmas are behind us and we're into 2021 already! I can't believe how quickly time has flown by - so now it's time to share some "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" ..... Sunshine - what's been happening to make me happy, Lollipops - silly things and memes that gave me a smile, and Rainbows - what I'm grateful for this month.
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CULTIVATING WHOLEHEARTED LIVING IN MIDLIFE

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CHOOSING MY WORD OF THE YEAR

At the beginning of each year I've chosen a Word to represent how I want to grow and develop in the months ahead. I've had some that appeared in my head without a second thought, and others that have taken a lot longer to filter through. Last year I chose Symphony and it was something that came to mind in the dying weeks of 2019 - and actually worked very well for the highs and lows that 2020 brought with it.

This year I have a new word. I actually had several that presented themselves during last year, and I duly noted them down - Courage, Emerge, Harmony, Discovery, and Self-Acceptance. Each had meaning for me and each spoke of growth and balance. As I was mulling them over, a picture popped up on my Pinterest page that shared Brene Brown's Guideposts for Wholeheart Living and it resonated with me enough to inspire my Word for 2021...
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THAT'S A WRAP AND MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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IT'S A WRAP FOR 2020

Well, Christmas is just around the corner and the end of the year will be upon us before we know it. 2020 has crawled by at times, and flown by at other times. One minute we were in February and hearing about Coronavirus, then we were in March and completely locked down. Before I knew it, Easter had gone by without family or Easter eggs for the grandgirls.

We settled into our new normal here in Australia as Covid was kept to quarantined returning travellers in their hotel rooms, and life pretty much returned to normal. My heart broke for those who were living with huge numbers of new community cases, and those who lost family or friends from the virus. Things have certainly been uncertain and unsettled.
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HOW DID YOUR WORD OF THE YEAR PLAY OUT?

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CHOOSING A WORD OF THE YEAR

Every January for the past five years I've chosen a word to focus on rather than getting tied to New Years resolutions. I love that it's more general and it prompts me to think about how I'd like to grow in the 12 months ahead of me - rather than pledging to do things that I might not achieve. 
As far as previous #WOTY's go, the first year I chose Release (so many things I needed to let go of), then it was Embrace (so many new things to open myself up to), then I moved on to Enough (being enough and having enough). I changed track with Rise (rising up from a difficult year) and followed that with More (becoming more rather than fading away to less). This year I found it really difficult to settle on a word - nothing felt right and I nearly gave it all a miss. Then at the last minute I stumbled upon this William Ellery Channing quote....
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HEADING TOWARDS MY SIXTIES WITH SELF-ACCEPTANCE AND A SMILE

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WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR IN THE NEXT DECADE?

It was my birthday last month, and it was the last one in my 50's - yes.... I am now officially 59 and looking at finishing out another decade of life. I've been asking myself over the last few weeks, what it is that I want to set in place in preparation to embarking on my sixties. Basically, what ongoing issue do I need to finally get sorted?

I keep circling back to words like self-confidence, self-love, self-worth, and self-esteem, because I feel like I still haven't attained that inner sense of self-assuredness that I see in so many other women of my age. I can put on the mask and pretend to be confident, but underneath there's still that little voice in my head that tells me it's not real and I'm not comfortable in my sense of "self". I'm not sure what's lacking, but I'm planning on doing something proactive over the next year to finally step into being relaxed and confident in who I am - no more pretending.
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