One of the positives about writing a blog is the ability to look back to see what was going on in my life at various times. I can look back and see how I was dealing with the early days of my own retirement transition (many years ago now! – here’s a link to my first post about Life Domains, which was eventually translated into the Life Domains I shared in my book – yes, it is still available on Amazon – link here). I can see some of the other big life transition points in retirement (from my approach to dealing with cancer – link here, or the choice to move to full-time residency in Florida – link here). This week I started to ponder, where was I mentally before the hurricanes hit? It feels like I’ve lost 6 months and taken a big step backward in my personal development.
Retirement has given me the time to focus on personal development. Back when I wrote my book about retirement transition one of the domains (one that I struggled with) I called, at the time, Self-development/Generativity. Generativity was something that all the retirement books talked about; it’s about your life purpose and legacy. How was I going to “make my mark” legacy-wise when I had no children, I was leaving the mentoring mode of my career, and had no real desire or direction about volunteering nor community activism?
I spent many years of my retirement working in this domain, especially in personal development. I refined my retirement lifestyle vision to align with my core values. I continuously (and unsuccessfully) explored the idea of what was my life purpose. I spent time understanding my self-limiting beliefs and then worked on awareness and affirmations to help release them, multiple times. I studied and intentionally implemented many of the Positive Psychology practices. I worked on self-acceptance. This was the point I was at pre-hurricane! Self-acceptance. I know this because I looked at my blogs from early to mid 2024.
I had come to an acceptance that I liked my life with its balance of same-old routines and new experiences. I had found a life rhythm that was aligned to my retirement lifestyle vision and core values. It was a leisurely life, filled with volunteering, exercise classes I enjoyed, and dabbling in crafting and gardening. It had its contentious moments and some personal development items were still work-in-progress (awareness of my friendship fantasies versus reality, working on celebrating myself versus Compare & Despair). But I felt settled in our lifestyle here in Florida, and had even decided it was time to travel again. Travel was something I enjoyed years ago and hubby encouraged me to re-engage in travel planning.
Boom. I am no longer there. I’m back to massive self-doubt with regular Compare & Despair. My routines are shot and I’m struggling to plan new experiences with a high anxiety things will go wrong. Just figuring out where to park to atttend a new event made me decide to not plan it at all! My trepidation about travel has returned (planes going down everywhere it seems) and has even increased around international travel. I’m ashamed to be an American these days and I’m terrified to make any travel plans overseas.
These past few weeks have been a roller-coaster of grief again. Forward momentum on the house recovery has stalled. Sadness has settled in, my irritability is sky-rocketing, and my anger is barely suppressed. I am trying to be kind to myself, to accept these emotions, and to do those positive psychology practices I know – practice gratitude, look for moments of joy, get outside and be in nature, connect to friends, hubby dates.
For some motivational self-talk, I took a relook at life purpose, this time with a “small p” with insights from Dr. Laurie Santos, a researcher into the science of well-being and happiness. She encourages you to “find your purpose with a little-p” with some of these activities:
- Enjoy the daily journey, find joy in something every day
- Watch for what activities actually light us up while we’re doing them; engage in activities that spark your energy and engagement; ruthlessly cross off from your schedule activities that drain your energy!
- Instead of looking outward towards the expectations of others, look inward; listen to our own inner supportive voice.
I also looked back at another time I wrote in a blog about uncertainty and hope (link here). Back in 2020, at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, there was social uncertainty. Not unlike today when we really did (do) not know what additional horrors the next day would bring! It was fascinating how the self-talk I gave myself then I can give myself again today:
- Make sure you keep taking care of your body – sleep, eat well, move it!
- It’s OK to feel bad some days. Accept the negative emotions.
- Just stop the Compare & Despair. [Your journey is your journey.]
- Make a connection with a friend every single day!
- Continue to practice gratitude; find joy and beauty in every single day.
- Be content in this moment. Choose to live life now. Now is the only time things can happen. Not the past – that cannot be changed. Not the future – you don’t know what will unfold. Focus on today.
And so, I will focus more on finding the joy in each day, doing the things that spark positive energy, and showing myself kindness on the days that are just bad.
But I also do have hope for the future; hope that life will return to a nice blend of routines I love and new experiences I can look forward to. I hope to return to a feeling of self-acceptance. Hope …and patience. Patience with the process of healing – both the house recovery and my own mental recovery! But, can’t both go just a tiny bit faster?
If you are another blogger, do you value past blogs as a source of, “Where was I?”
Picture Credit: an immersive museum experience this week (Hubby date!) – walls of flowers
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