DouceLifeAt50.com

Last week I turned 56 years old.  I have joined the rank of women who think 50 is not old at all, it seems that menopause brings a new sense of freedom.  Since my youngest daughter left home to go away to school my time became solely mine, talk about mommy’s day off. All of a sudden the hours spent with all the things a mom does after school and on weekends are just hours for me to use as I please.  I am filling those hours doing things that I love to do: reading, practicing yoga, thinking, creating, what I call pampering myself. This is the opposite of being bored, there are so many fun things to fill those hours. Having and taking the time to do the things that matter to me are really making me feel younger.  

For many years my age was not something I liked to think about, I just brushed it aside.  Each new year was a reminder of what I had not accomplished yet. We don’t have a choice but to go with the ebb of the calendar but it is only a marker not a sentence.  What I have learned is that when I was spending to much time thinking of the past or the future I was missing the present moment. How we live each day really matters, paying attention to our lives brings greater rewards than we can imagine, it changes the relationships we have with ourselves and the people we love, it improves our quality of life.  As I was reflecting on how far I have come as far as my happiness level (a term used in the Greater Good Science Center’s Science of Happiness free online class I just finished), I started thinking of how much I like who I have become which led me to ponder why it took me so long to get where I am now. Over the years I have gone through many metamorphosis and many lessons that I realize were necessary to make me appreciate who I am now.  As human beings we adapt to each phases of our lives, in order to do that we don many different personas, first is the child, then the adolescent, the adult, the parent, the spouse, the sibling, the coworker and many others. Each persona has a personality that reflects who we are interacting with and the situation we are in. Why did I use the word persona? I wondered what that word really meant, so I googled it. Nowadays we thinks of a persona as the  representation of someone’s character, it used to mean a character in a play or novel. The word has evolved to fit our modern lives. (I have included the definitions I found on Wikipedia at the end of this essay.)

Now here I am at 56 feeling like I have shed all personas to become myself including cellulite, wrinkles, grey hair, warts and all.  To me my fifties are a gift that brings the wisdom to accept myself and the freedom to not care about how others judge me. I take full responsibility for my thoughts and actions, it is all on me.  I am busy growing into the woman I believe I am meant to be. This could not have happened without going through all my past experiences. Each experience has pushed me towards my authentic self. According to the new science on happiness, to be happy you need a balance in your life that includes being thankful, appreciative, grateful, and forgive to name a few of the emotions that are important to our well being and the well being of our society.  One other component to improving your feeling of happiness is to feel awe either by admiring what brings you that feeling. I chose to find awe in nature that is why I take the time to go hiking with a close friend every other week. I enjoy learning to navigate this new found freedom, being positive and feeling very much alive.

Wishing you a week full of personal discoveries and enjoyment.

Wikipedia:

A persona (plural personae or personas), in the word’s everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask.

In psychology:

According to Carl Jung and the Jungian psychology, the persona is also the mask or appearance one presents to the world.^[14] It may appear in dreams under various guises. People may choose to wear a social mask or “persona” to make themselves appear more socially desirable. This is used to impress members of the opposite sex or to make new friends.^[15] People can have multiple personas that they use in various situations, this can include work, being with friends, at home, etc. Depending on the person stronger personas can be created because they put a higher emphasis on social interactions. However Carl Jung warns about using personas too much fearing that one might lose their own individuality to their persona. A study has shown that this can be true to an extent, when taking a private self-rating test there is a high correlation between how a person rates themselves and how they present themselves in public, but it’s hard to tell if people are accurately filling out the test or answering what they find desirable.^[16]