Ellen Besso Coaching

Today the snow covers the roads and the trees. The local public school is open, but the school bus couldn’t come down the hill to lower Gibsons. So the kids on our street stayed home and made a great snowman, complete with scarf, hat and a carrot nose. The snow was just right for packing.

We walked around the neighbourhood, not attempting to climb the hill to the bluff above us as we usually do. I managed in my old running shoes, I don’t have any winter boots if you can imagine that! After the walk I was entering my little studio behind the house when I noticed an older woman on cross-country skis, complete with poles, going down the lane that backs our house. I think the plowed lane approximated a groomed trail for her.

When weather like this comes our way, it’s so unusual and so beautiful that it causes us to slow down, to take time out from our busy routines, from our pushing;It’s a nice break. I think something happens inside us that is calming and soothing. Because we can’t get about physically quite as well as usual, we feel the peace inside. We give ourselves permission to slow down.

The thing is, the peace is always there inside us if we give it a chance. Sometimes all it takes is a deep breath and a check-in. Then we find out it’s still there.

This year I missed planting my bulbs in the fall as I was away on my India trip. The re-entry to home life took time, then holidays intervened. So I bought the tulip bulbs last weekend. Some people say you can plant them up to the end of January here on the west coast. But Diana at the nursery says you can plant them anytime; they just come up a bit later.

So I went out and began shallowly planting a few purple and pink bulbs in places that were visible from the kitchen window, back deck, or the walk to and from the car. There was one section of the flowerbed, that gets virtually no sun this time of year; it was very hard when I tried to dig with my trowel. I pushed at the soil and muttered to myself “what’s this?”. I didn’t realize at first that the ground was frozen, as it’s such an unusual event out here on the ‘wet coast’.

My mind immediately drew an analogy between gardening and life change. Making big changes in any area of our lives is usually very challenging. Martha Beck didn’t invent the mantra “this is way harder than I thought and that’s alright” for nothing!

Sometimes the ground of our psyche or our spirit is wounded. It may be too hard to plant seeds of change in it. Perhaps our mind is closed in a particular area; maybe our heart has shut over years of disappointment. Sometimes our physical beings need to be built up just as we would nourish the soil for stronger, better flowers or crops. In a similar way we must strengthen ourselves with good food, vitamins, herbs and so on, to have the stamina we need to both create change and live it.

I’ve been working on the soil that is me by exercising my body with walking and movement classes, feeding my spirit in nature, and my emotions by receiving neurological treatments. But the toughest thing for me, and perhaps for many of you, is having faith. Faith that my dreams and hard work will manifest in the life I dream of.

Each spring it’s a miracle to me when the plants begin to sprout. I know it will happen, because it always has, but still it captures my attention and my imagination. I trust that spring will come, and the plants will grow beautiful.

My new resolve is to trust that this force…call it nature, or the Universe, or the Goddess if you will…that brings the flowers to fruition each year, will bring me the life I yearn for.

Self-forgiveness…a difficult topic at the best of times. Many of us, I would venture to say most of us, carry the weight of past things we have done, or not done. The burdens may feel subtle or crushing, but either way they take an enormous toll on us. They tie up a lot of energy that we could be using for other, more positive activities. Awareness of these feelings can help us go further into them. Gentleness with ourselves can create the possibility of releasing them.

I hope you will find the following article excerpts on Self-forgiveness helpful. You can read more by the clicking the link following each:

“Our hearts melted into one another’s in instant recognition during that first hug;two spirits connected by the mother-daughter bond which can never be broken. Only shame, guilt and remorse fed the fire of apparent separation. Only forgiveness would dowse the flames and complete the circle of love…Thirty-six years before I had given birth to my first daughter and released my baby for adoption…30 years later, I found myself in a class of spiritual counseling students with six other women who shared a similar past…Together we began the excruciating journey of dredging up our pain. We faced our demons – guilt, shame, blame, anger, self-recrimination – and we prayed for one another and all those whose pain we share”…

Read more in The Miracle of Self Forgiveness by Diane Harmony

In the waiting room in my clinic, there is a poster that says “Self Forgiveness is Essential for Healing”. A patient once asked me what it means and why I put it up there. There are two main reasons why I put the poster up. Firstly, I want my patients to realise that some physical illnesses are just manifestations of unresolved emotions and conflicts. Most times, these unresolved emotions have to do with anger and self blame. Both emotions are actually two sides of the same coin”…

Read more in Self Forgiveness is Essential for Healing by Dr. Tim Ong

“The act of self-forgiveness changes the energy and physical structures of your cells, and of your DNA. Guilt is a very powerful and deadening emotion. Guilt in itself can, as it were, close down the energy systems of your body;Because each and every one of your cells has consciousness, they too can carry the essence and energy of guilt within them that makes their energy denser. With this denser energy;throughout the body the illnesses;leave a residue”…

Read more in: Forgiveness and Self-Forgiveness by John Payne

The above quote is Charla Krupp’s message to all women from her new book How Not to Look Old. The sad thing is there’s some truth in this! We do live in a superficial society where snap judgements are made according to appearance.

But does this mean we have to buy into the trend and spend a fortune on how we look? (according to a report in the Rage Diaries ), Charla Krupp spends about $16,000 annually on her appearance). Does it mean we have to snip and tuck & stagger around on stiletto heels? I think not.

I am a product of my society like all of us, and while I do not wear high heels and don’t spend all that much on clothes, I do have my hair streaked once a year. And I bought my first anti-aging product about 2 weeks ago. I’m fitter than I was during perimenopause and the first few years of menopause and feel better too because I exercise now. I don’t drink a lot and try to limit my cookie intake (well more than during the sitting-on-the-bed days of perimenopause anyway).

In some instances the worship of youthful looks goes way beyond ageism & into misogyny. Rush Limbaugh is quoted as saying about Hillary Clinton: “Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis?”

Unfortunately this kind of overt criticism of aging women, along with all the covert messages send a strong message to women. It can undermine our self-esteem if we aren’t grounded in ourselves.

It’s great to look and feel good, but I don’t see the point in trying to look like someone we’re not. The reality is that some of us are middle-aged, and so what? If we are “invisible”, that’s only because our society has weirded out about youth.

This one’s for the women who don’t really feel like doing anything! Well, not any of their normal activities anyway.

At the workshop I gave last Saturday I asked women to write down everything they had to do, including social activities, over the next few days, then rate them very quickly from +10 right down to -10 (with no time for monitoring). This is a helpful exercise I learned from Martha Beck.

One woman said that she had to search really hard…pretty much make up something…to have just one positive activity in her batch of negatives. I got the impression she really thought something was wrong with her.

I asked the group if anyone found it unusual that a midlife woman would feel this way. Several women said no, others shook their heads. It was just where she was at. At this time of our life we often find we need lots and lots of down-time. Time to ourselves to do whatever we please, and that may very well be nothing! We may have to fight with ourselves as well as others to get it!

The low kidney energy I had during the latter part of my perimenopause offered me an opportunity to take the time to experience the stillness within me.

Although many in our society would differ, it’s okay to do lots of nothing. It surprises me now that I was able to give myself permission to do so little, as I’m kind of hard on myself (understatement of the year).