midlife change

The Redemptive Power of Love

/ Laura Lee Carter / 9 Comments

I woke up this morning just in time to hear the end of the wonderful talk by Reverend Michael Curry at the Royal Wedding of Harry and Meghan Markle:

“Dr. King was right: ‘We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love. And when we discover that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world.                                   Love is the only way.’ ”

This has also been my experience with love. When I finally found true love at age 49, I somehow felt redeemed. To redeem means “to make an unpleasant thing or person feel better or more acceptable.”

Laura and Mike Wedding Day 2005

Mike and I on our wedding day. Just like a couple of kids…

I had never felt true love from another my entire life. There had always been reasons why I was not acceptable to those I had loved in my past. That is why it felt so magical to me when Mike embraced all of me as just right! And even now, thirteen years later I still feel loved, appreciated and accepted every day of my life. And to think this all started on a blind date eight months earlier…

Love is an amazing way to change your world. Love like this was the most important piece that was missing from my life, and when I decided that and then began focusing wholeheartedly on that goal, it happened! Like magic we met and knew very quickly that we had met our true match FINALLY!

How to Believe in Love Again! blog sizeA few years later I wrote my book: “How To Believe In Love Again” to help others realize this universal truth through love. It is so easy to get distracted by other goals and not realize that love can complete your life. Especially as we age we know what matters and what does not. Without Mike’s love so many of my other goals would not have come to fruition. Because of his support both emotionally and financially, I had the time, courage and audacity to reach one of my most important dreams. I became a writer and author. Then, with his technical skills and the power of his own dreams, we were able to build a passive solar home looking at the Spanish Peaks.

Yes, love can help you build your dreams and create so many more, and it is also so wonderful to feel that daily support from another human being who stands by you no matter what.

What the heart has once known, it shall never forget…

Health consequences I wish I had known about when I was younger…

/ Laura Lee Carter / 7 Comments
Dad Laura Diane and John small January 1961

MY DAD WITH US KIDS ON AN OUTING IN IOWA AROUND 1960

Back when I was a kid in the 1950s and 60s, so many well known facts about health consequences were not common knowledge. For example, we didn’t even think about providing sunglasses to children, and I don’t remember ever hearing of anything called sun screen.  We used suntan lotion instead to increase the sun damage! Good thinking, huh? I had a friend in high school who skipped school at the hottest part of the day just to really burn her skin.

Even in my late teens, when I was fortunate enough to spend a few months in southern Thailand, I used no sun screen. Today I have plenty of sun damage on my face, neck and chest to show for my bad judgment back then. And guess what? Sun damage is so obvious and UGLY as you age, not to mention so many wrinkles! I also damaged the retina at the back of one eye by having light colored eyes and not protecting them better. Now I have to wear dark sunglasses or I get headaches.

Another painful consequence for me, one I’m just beginning to realize in the past few years is shoulder, elbow and hand damage from overuse of my right arm. Sure, I know so much computer use in the past forty years hasn’t helped a bit, but I can highly recommend to those younger than me to not over use one side of your body. My left side seems brand new while my right arm, hip and knee complain constantly. Start to raise awareness right now how much you may depend on one side of your body for everything, and switch it up as soon as you can! Don’t wait until it hurts to use your right arm to realize you also have a left arm.

Something many boomers are realizing too late is how important good posture is while sitting and especially driving. Those who drive for a living in various careers can and do get stuck in one position for life. Notice how you sit and move even if it seems unconscious. Start doing stretches every day to combat being stuck in certain postures. Yoga is a great start to maintain spinal and upper body flexibility. Don’t wait. Do it NOW.

We also had no routine screenings for diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer when I was young. My Mom had to find her own breast lump in her thirties and for that reason she is still with us today. Mike’s Mom didn’t know about colon cancer and died at age 53. Do those screenings on a regular basis. They save thousands of lives every year.

I learned a little too late how to protect my brain properly. I realize now I am not alone in the bike accident department, especially past age 50. Balance and head injuries are not the same past age 50. If I had hit concrete instead of dirt headfirst back in 2008, I wouldn’t be here today. As it is, I was unconscious for hours afterward and don’t remember most of it. Today I live with extra brain challenges every single day because of one stupid mistake. Writing is one of the ways I meet these challenges.

mediterranean diet foods

And as crazy as it might seem, something I didn’t know when I was young, food truly is your best medicine. If you start out eating a wide variety of natural foods from birth instead of processed junk, you will thank yourself decades later. It is actually difficult to overeat real foods like eggs, dairy, nuts, lean meat, vegetables and fruit. Learn how to listen to your body and you will be less likely to stress eat instead of eating only when actually hungry.

Learn to love a few different types of exercise and do them for the rest of your life. Walking always makes me feel better mentally and physically. Gardening also keeps me active and happy. Find your favorite activities and keep improving every day of your life.

What path am I creating that others might follow?

/ Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

When everything began to change for me in the early 2000s, I was scared. It seemed like all of my previous coping skills weren’t working anymore. Staying in the same career and trying to make a moribund marriage work finally reached a dead end for me. My career no longer interested me, and my marriage was irrevocably broken.

Now I know. If you find your life headed toward dead ends, find the time to focus on who you are now, before you decide what’s next.

After I got myself out of that very bad place, and began to feel like things had truly turned around for me, my greatest desire was to create a better path that others might follow out of midlife misery. Being a psychologist and a scholar, I started studying the history of midlife psychology. There I learned that what I had just experienced was a natural, normal, healthy transformation available to every person who is willing to take advantage of this new rite of passage for the human race! If you have the desire and the courage to take risks, you can change just about everything in your life.

caterpillar butterfly quote

That is what I have been doing ever since, and life just keeps getting better. I became a writer to educate others about the unique opportunities midlife presents to us at just the right time to get it right this time! Yes, there is still plenty of time to find a much better life, but first you must decide your highest priorities and then do everything in your power to reach those goals.

But this is also about attitude. Do you believe you can create a much better life for yourself? Why not error on the side of the positive this time?

Abundance is how we live in each moment – the choice to be open, the choice to entertain the possibility that we can have, create, and attract what we truly want.

Open to your own vast spontaneous creativity. Give yourself the freedom to try new things. Let go of your innate fear of failure, and finally feel free to experiment, perhaps for the first time in decades!

  

How lonely are you?

/ Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

According to recent research, Americans are a pretty lonely group, and the younger you are, the lonelier you feel.

A nationwide survey by the health insurer Cigna underscores that fact. Their survey of over 20,000 American adults age 18 or older, finds that loneliness is widespread in our country, with nearly 50 percent of respondents reporting that they feel left out always or sometimes.

The Cigna results offer some alarming findings:

  • Nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone (46 percent) or left out (47 percent).

  • One in four Americans (27 percent) rarely or never feel as though there are people who really understand them.

  • Two in five Americans sometimes or always feel that their relationships are not meaningful (43 percent) and that they are isolated from others (43 percent).

  • One in five people report they rarely or never feel close to people or feel like there are people they can talk to.

  • Americans who live with others are less likely to be lonely (average loneliness score of 43.5) compared to those who live alone (46.4). However, this does not apply to single parents/guardians (average loneliness score of 48.2) – even though they live with children, they are more likely to be lonely.

  • Only around half of Americans (53 percent) have regular meaningful in-person social interactions, such as having an extended conversation with a friend or spending quality time with family.

  • Generation Z (adults ages 18-22) is the loneliest generation and claims to be in worse health than older generations.

Is social media part of the problem?

Social media use alone is not a predictor of loneliness; respondents defined as very heavy users of social media have a loneliness score (43.5) not markedly different from the score of those who never use social media (41.7).

More time online and social media may be causing a rise in depression and suicide among American adolescents. People who spend less time looking at screens and more time having face-to-face social interactions are less likely to be depressive or suicidal.

It appears that how people use social media determines its influence on one’s sense of isolation.

Members of Generation Z, born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s, had an overall loneliness score of 48.3. Millennials, just a little bit older, scored 45.3. By comparison, baby boomers scored 42.4. The Greatest Generation, people ages 72 and above, had a score of 38.6 on the loneliness scale.

I have been what I consider to be a loner for most of my life, and enjoyed most of that time alone. Even though I moved here with Mike, I feared moving to rural Colorado because I didn’t know if I would find friends here. As it turns out, I do have a few friends who understand the value of a great education, deep friendship and healthy solitude.

Laura and Rasta on insulation 2014 (2)

I also find I enjoy spending more time alone when feeling so connected to nature as I do here.

GIVE YOURSELF A BREAK!

/ Laura Lee Carter / 6 Comments

One lesson we can all learn by travelling to other countries is that Americans are awfully busy. I have lived in southeast Asia, China, France and Italy, and can find no other group of people who feel the need to be constantly busy. My favorite country was Italy. They seem to have such a generous sense of time compared to us, and an ability to enjoy the process of living without guilt over stopping to enjoy each moment.

How did we ever get so busy and guilty about simply relaxing?

Freefall for blogI really don’t know how we got so driven as a culture, but I do have a few tips on how to give yourself a break from all of that internalized pressure: Take days off from your ‘normal’ life where you can truly do whatever YOU want to do. No rules. No guilt. Be lazy. Watch trashy TV. Eat mac and cheese. No food shaming either. Try really hard not to judge yourself or others for just a few hours. Celebrate having the time to just be yourself!

Let your mind wonder on a regular basis. Free thought is where all creativity comes from. How could your life be better? Free your mind to consider ALL of your options. What barriers would you need to bridge in your own mind to have a much better life?

What rules do you need to get rid of right now?

For some reason, aging can be quite the catalyst in freeing your mind. Being perfectly clear on the fact that your years are numbered can clear your head! What do you want to do before you die? Stop all the daily busyness long enough to do those things now!

feeling satisfied everyday

Stepping out of the busyness, stopping our endless pursuit of getting somewhere else, is perhaps the most beautiful offering we can make to our spirit.  — TARA BRACH