Codependent no more, but still quite the introvert

April 15, 2018April 15, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

After only a couple days of company out here in the middle of nowhere, I realized once again exactly what an introvert I am. I can easily become intolerant with ‘company’ because I’m just too easily distracted by other peoples’ energy.

This definition of introvert works perfect for me:

Someone who prefers calm, minimally stimulating environments, and tends to feel drained after socializing, regaining energy by spending time alone.

I am fundamentally too sensitive to have most people around me for any length of time. After only a few hours I feel exhausted and angry. I hate feeling so at the mercy of the needs and emotions of others. I need to isolate to finally give myself the love and attention I need. When forced into situations with lots of people around I eventually explode! I have a great fear of being stuck with others whom I really don’t want to be around, so I have finally learned to do this:

“I’m very picky whom I give my energy to. I prefer to reserve my time, intensity and spirit exclusively for those who reflect sincerity.” ~ Dau Voire

And yes, I search relentlessly for those who are sincere and authentic. I find most do not value putting time and energy into becoming their authentic self. That is one of my most essential goals.

One of the first topics Mike and I agreed on when we met, was that we had both been identified as “too intense” throughout our lives. That must be society’s way of saying strange. I would define that trait as highly sensitive to everything around us, especially other people. Mike and I notice everything around us and thankfully at about the same rate of speed. We test this out sometimes and find we are often on the same wave length, thinking the same thing at the same time. This must be why we can enjoy being around each other, while most people drive us nuts after only a couple of hours.

We know to give each other lots of space.

“Introverts are word economists in a society suffering from verbal diarrhea.” ~ Michaela Chung

I feared before I met Mike that I was destined to live alone forever with just my dogs, because most people drive me nuts fairly quickly. But I am here to reassure those of you who are highly sensitive and quite picky about partners, there are others out there! Don’t give up the search…

“I want to be alone… with someone else who wants to be alone.” – Dimitri Zaik

“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” – Stephen Hawking

Now that I’ve gotten used to being ‘old’…

April 11, 2018January 1, 2023 / Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

An elder friend told me years ago, ‘old’ is always ten years older than you are right now! Actually, I still do struggle with the apparent fact that I am now 63 years old. In my mind people in their sixties are like my grandparents. They are retired, checked out of the work world. I barely remember my grandparents before they retired. I mostly remember them as elderly folks who hung out a lot watching TV. This all reminds me of how different and out of it I must seem to kids today.

I’m beginning to think I’m the last person on planet earth who has never owned a “smart” phone and never really needed one.

I still communicate with my friends through e-mail to set up dates, etc. It works and does not add all those additional monthly expenses for mobile phones. I suppose my thrifty nature has made it possible for us to retire early… But then you do run into the whole, “What do you do with your life now?” question.

First of all, anything would be better than my life back in 2004 when I lost my last job. I was driving a hour each way to Denver to work at Regis University Libraries. I swear I’m still suffering from back and shoulder pain from that daily trek down I-25 to a job I hated, with people who apparently hated me. After six years I got fired in a way that felt like the end of life itself, but turned out to be the best thing ever! Yes, my life since then has been the perfect example of this Chinese parable from 2,000 years ago:

A Chinese farmer gets a beautiful horse, but it soon runs away. A neighbor says, “That’s bad!” The farmer replies, “Good news, bad news, who can say?”

The horse comes back and brings another horse with him. Good news, you might say.

The farmer gives the second horse to his son, who rides it, but is then thrown and breaks his leg.

“So sorry for your bad news,” says the concerned neighbor. “Good news, bad news, who can say?” the farmer replies.

In a week or so, the emperor’s men come and take every able-bodied young man to fight in a war. The farmer’s son is spared...

Proving once again that nothing is as it seems at the time. From my first (and ONLY!) firing as a professional librarian at age 49, I learned that it’s best not to get too hung up on what happened today. Even something that seems like the worst EVER can turn out to be a hidden opportunity to improve your life!

Our Walsenburg rental, an 100-year-old miner’s home!

My best example of this is four years ago when we moved down here to build solar in the foothills. When we first got here I was not certain this was such a great idea. Moving from an up-and-coming city like Fort Collins to a poor, quiet, rundown town like Walsenburg left me thinking,

“Is this a bad thing? Have I lost my mind?”

But resilience and patience got us through the difficult adjustment stage of building this home out in the foothills west of Walsenburg, and today I am supremely happy to be here now.

Note to myself: Allow LOTS of time for personal adjustment around major life changes.

And yes, we do find excellent ways to spend our days, even in retirement. We have learned to enjoy a much slower pace with lots of time to just be. I have also learned how to truly live in the present.

If you can find a better way to live your life, go for it!

“There’s nothing sweeter than falling in love with the moment we’re given, the only one we have.” — Marcia Smalley

Access your intuition, a new kind of wisdom

April 7, 2018April 8, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 1 Comment

Another excerpt from one my books. This time its: How To Believe in Love Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom.

“We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

Can we change, and if so, how? We can only change with renewed self-awareness, honest self-love, determination, positive support from others, the addition of a few new skill sets, and with a willingness to go inside of ourselves to harvest the wisdom we have accumulated over a lifetime. All of this takes courage.

Determination and courage come from the absolute certainty that the way we have been living so far has not worked. When you reach that desperate moment when you know your rational mind no longer has all of the answers you seek, it is time to surrender. Admitting surrender is difficult. This admission is equivalent to acknowledging that you have failed in your efforts so far. Pure stubbornness and denial of your feelings and needs have not given you the life you had hoped for, or the answers you seek.

You would be crazy to continue on this path: Time for a new leap of faith…

Now what? Depending solely on rational thought has not worked. It is now time to welcome in the wisdom of the universe and those others who wish to help. It is now time to begin to access the wisdom of your own intuition, every little whisper emanating from your unconscious, your dreams or wherever they come from. These are the voices that will guide you back to where you so want to go.

Intuition is tricky. It is a way of knowing, yet it is often unclear how we know it. Some seem to have greater natural access to their intuition, but we all can develop the necessary skills to access this invaluable inner guidance. Extrasensory perception, clairvoyance, and telepathy are all different types of intuitive access to your right brain hemisphere, the part that specializes in intuitive, holistic pattern perceptions. Most of us have been raised to strongly value messages from our rational, linear left brain. It is now time to listen to the other side of the story and find some brain balance.

Why bother? Because by combining the power of your own intuition with your intellect, you will begin to see different patterns and recognize new possibilities, opening up your mind to many new choices that were not available to you before. As Frances E. Vaughan, a psychologist who specializes in integrating psychology and spiritual growth states in her book Awakening Intuition:

“Awakening intuition enables one to see the choices available and is thus a liberating experience…At any given moment one is conscious of only a small portion of what one knows. Intuition allows one to draw on that vast storehouse of unconscious knowledge that includes not only everything that one has experienced or learned, either consciously or subliminally, but also the infinite reservoir of the collective and universal unconscious…”

Do you believe it is possible to expand your consciousness to include your intuitive side? Do you believe you could benefit from an expansion of your level of self-awareness? If you do not believe this, than it probably isn’t possible. Don’t lie to yourself about what you believe. If you simply feel perplexed or confused, acknowledge that is where you are at right now. Welcome in all of your disillusioned parts to participate in this experiment in accessing the rest of your brain, the part that hasn’t been available to help for all of these years.

Quiet the mind of its perpetual chatter. Relax so you may learn how to listen to what you already know inside. You may need to take some time alone to access these new caring voices. They are hard to hear if the rest of your life is in chaos. Trust in your inner wisdom to show you what steps you need to take to open previously closed doors and learn why you are not open to love now.

Intuition is an essential tool to guide you towards a healthier sense of yourself and what you need to do next to attract what you want into your life.

Boomer Spring Stories: The Easter Edition!

March 31, 2018April 2, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 8 Comments

Doesn’t everyone have a great Easter story? I do! Many years ago my Mom and I were visiting her parents in a small town in Missouri. It was a beautiful spring day so we were out walking around. We came to a park and started noticing small candy eggs laying around, so we picked a few up. Ten minutes later the kids arrived, yelling and all worked up. We suddenly got it. We were stealing candy from children! We re-hide them quick…

It’s also time for my favorite Easter bunny joke!

Easter is my favorite time of year, because I was born around this time… a true Easter baby!

Here’s how the date of Easter is determined: “Easter falls on the first Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon, the full moon on or after 21 March, taken to be the date of the vernal equinox.”

Let’s see what some of my boomer blog friends have to say about springtime. Here’s one from a friend in Australia first:

Spring has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. Sue Loncaric from Sizzling Towards 60 & Beyond shares her thoughts on welcoming spring and the opportunity of new beginnings and possibilities: Ten things you can do to enjoy spring and also enrich your life with health and happiness.

Spring’s the time to do some life pruning and there’s no time like Easter to begin, says Carol Cassara over at Heart Mind Soul. Releasing what no longer serves us is a great way to celebrate renewal and rebirth.

Longer hours of light, the sun feels slightly warmer every day, the gray landscape begins to turn green, it must be the season when we spring forward. These experiences all inspired Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting to write her piece, “And Then There Was Light.”

Jennifer from Unfold And Begin is happy that the temperatures are warming up in Connecticut. It means she can come out of hibernation and start enjoying warmer temperatures. The weather also reminded her of a special drive that she took with her mother once. Read about it in “Driving With My Mother.”

Rebecca Olkowski with BabyBoomster.com has been celebrating Women’s History Month (instead of spring). She attended an event in LA called “The History of Women and the Cocktail.” During the Victorian Age, women were concocting some amazing drinks to enjoy with their friends, even though they were excluded from bars and saloons. Well, I guess I’ll drink to that!

On The Survive and Thrive Boomer Guide, Rita R. Robison, consumer journalist, writes about how going to a new Methodist church with her sister on Palm Sunday this year brought ups memories of Easters past. Robison remembers how much she liked the sunrise services and enjoyed the way the hymns sounded in the hills surrounding Lake Chelan in Washington state.

Tom Sightings admits that he has a lot of nostalgia for the 1990s, when his kids were growing up and things were going well at work. But now in Can We Be Happy for the Rest of Our Lives? he examines how happy we are — and how happy we can be — in this new phase of life we call retirement.

Me, I’m cruising with gratitude that the sun still comes up everyday and spring always returns right on time. I feel so fortunate every day that I found the love of my life thirteen years ago.

Midlife really did create a kind of rebirth for me and then a whole new spiritual journey!

The Ancient Ones & My Own Spirit Quest

March 30, 2018April 24, 2020 / Laura Lee Carter / 5 Comments

Since we moved here on our three acres outside of any city or town, my spiritual quest has been to connect more deeply with this land and its history. I know mostly Ute Indians traversed the valley below us regularly to travel out east to Old Bent’s Fort to sell their furs and meet other life-minded nomadic tribes. I sometimes feel their presence.

Last night, when I was having trouble sleeping, I remembered a marvelous spiritual experience I had back when Mike and I were still searching for the perfect place to retire. Here you go:

“Conchas” Living by Laura Lee Carter, April 2008

My husband Mike and I are spending our vacations these days, exploring possible destinations to retire to, just in case we can ever afford it. This year we spent a few days on a road trip through northeastern New Mexico.

We were drawn to a series of lakes north of Tucumcari: Ute Lake, Conchas Lake and Santa Rosa Lake. These are all state parks with nice facilities and beautiful but ever shrinking reservoirs as the drought continues down there. Two nights were spent camping at Conchas Lake State Park.

The first night felt like a spiritual awakening to me. Our tent was open at the top so I could see all the stars, and I don’t recall ever experiencing such amazing and overwhelming silence in my entire life. My personal account follows, written in the middle of the night:

In the perfect silence of a star-filled New Mexican night, I lie in my sleeping bag, contemplating the wonders of our universe. Yes, there are still places in America where one can marvel at the brilliant stars above, while getting lost in the silence of the surrounding wilderness.

Did a Native American woman lie in this exact same spot thinking similar thoughts many centuries before me? I feel so connected to the earth.

Living close to the earth increases my awareness of everything: the air temperature, the slightest breeze, the fragrances, the colors of the wildflowers and cacti, the occasional yelp of coyotes in the distance, the soaring hawks and vultures overhead. Time slows down.

The animal sounds serve to remind me that there was a time when we were simply prey to the many predators around us. We weren’t high-minded beings that thought that we had taken possession of the earth, but were instead just a potential meal to a hungry wolf or coyote nearby.

The homophonic nature of the Indian word “Conchas” and our word “conscious” were not lost on us. Mike’s Ojibwa family heritage may have been at play. We came to explore this land and also our own “conscious” minds, to learn about the ancient ones that inhabited this land long before us, to understand on a deeper level, the history of our earth.

Those that study the earth say that the present drought is probably another eleven year cycle, and the rains will return. But we must all wonder if man has impacted the earth’s natural cycles so gravely that they may be forever changed. We shall see.

After Conchas Lake, we headed northwest to the Jemez Pueblo area. I rarely use the word “awesome”, but I can’t imagine a better description of the deep red canyons of the Jemez Mountains. They are a unique and wonderful vision to behold!

Midlife as a Chance at Rebirth

March 28, 2018March 28, 2018 / Laura Lee Carter / 7 Comments

Have a sense of gratitude to everything, even difficult emotions, because of their potential to wake you up. ~ Pema Chödrön

Changes outside of ourselves do have the power to shock us into seeking anew what is real within. They can cause us to finally see the need and find the courage to stop playing roles for others, and find complete honesty, integrity, and authenticity within. This is the time to finally find the strength to announce we can no longer be what everyone else wants or needs us to be. We could never save others, so for now we must put all of our energy into saving ourselves. We must stop being constantly other-focused, forever taking our cues from outside ourselves, and dig deep to discover what we want and need to happen in this final phase of our lives…

Since self-deception is a thing of the past, you can no longer count on that trusty outside armoring you have hidden behind for decades. Gone are the masks you felt so secure behind. As your authentic self emerges, it becomes ever more difficult to delude yourself with the illusions you have counted on for decades. They may have always worked before, but they are gone now.

Sometimes playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do

I was struck recently by a saying I heard in reference to horror movies:

Nothing is scarier than having no idea what is out there.

This seemed like an excellent metaphor for what can happen to us in midlife.

In the middle of our lives we may find ourselves ensconced in what seems like the safe and familiar, but somehow all of that apparent safety can begin to feel threatening. We may think: “I’ll just follow this safe route for the rest of my life. I’m too old to do anything different at this stage of the game.”

What I learned through my own experience is that sometimes playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do. Sure, you could stay in the same job, career, or relationship, living the same life indefinitely. That sounds safe, but is it?

Doing what you’ve always done will get you what you’ve always had. If that is all you are seeking in life, then go for it. But is there perhaps a small part of you that wants more? Is there a quiet part of your brain that begs to differ on this plan to never deviate from the safe and trusted path?

What might you be missing by playing it safe?

It is not uncommon for some life-changing event to cause us to question anew the entire plan we have laid out for our life. Maybe we aren’t even aware that we have a plan, until something screws it up. Sometimes just one more birthday can help us to reconsider our overall plan and open us up to options we never dreamed of before.

Nothing is scarier than the daunting realization that we have not even tried to live up to our full potential. Sure, we did what we were told and found some success in our endeavors. Being “good” definitely has its rewards. But do you ever spend time focused on all that you could have been and then realize that none of that will ever happen? If you are anything like me, all of those “details” can only be ignored so long.

In midlife we may realize, sometimes for the first time ever, that our time here on earth is running out. When it does, how will we feel as we look back over our lives?

The best thing about being alive today is that if or when we come to this realization and achieve this new perspective, we generally have more time to seek out the tools, the inspiration, and the necessary resources to do something about it. We can begin to plan a new and different future for ourselves, if we can find the strength and courage to dig in and live the dream!

Remember, the opposite side of the coin of fear is excitement. When was the last time you felt like anything could happen? When was the last time you allowed yourself to feel your full potential to grow and change and be all that you could be? This apparent crisis is offering you the opportunity of a lifetime. Do not miss out.

This is a brief excerpt from my book: Find Your Reason To Be Here: The Search for Meaning in Midlife. It is only available in e-book format through Amazon. Feel free to contact me at MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com if you would like to purchase one of my last few paper copies.

After only a couple days of company out here in the middle of nowhere, I realized once again exactly what an introvert I am. I can easily become intolerant with ‘company’ because I’m just too easily distracted by other peoples’ energy.

This definition of introvert works perfect for me:

“I’m very picky whom I give my energy to. I prefer to reserve my time, intensity and spirit exclusively for those who reflect sincerity.” ~ Dau Voire

And yes, I search relentlessly for those who are sincere and authentic. I find most do not value putting time and energy into becoming their authentic self. That is one of my most essential goals.

We know to give each other lots of space.

“Introverts are word economists in a society suffering from verbal diarrhea.” ~ Michaela Chung

I feared before I met Mike that I was destined to live alone forever with just my dogs, because most people drive me nuts fairly quickly. But I am here to reassure those of you who are highly sensitive and quite picky about partners, there are others out there! Don’t give up the search…

“I want to be alone… with someone else who wants to be alone.” – Dimitri Zaik

“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” – Stephen Hawking

I’m beginning to think I’m the last person on planet earth who has never owned a “smart” phone and never really needed one.

A Chinese farmer gets a beautiful horse, but it soon runs away. A neighbor says, “That’s bad!” The farmer replies, “Good news, bad news, who can say?”

The horse comes back and brings another horse with him. Good news, you might say.

The farmer gives the second horse to his son, who rides it, but is then thrown and breaks his leg.

“So sorry for your bad news,” says the concerned neighbor. “Good news, bad news, who can say?” the farmer replies.

In a week or so, the emperor’s men come and take every able-bodied young man to fight in a war. The farmer’s son is spared...

My best example of this is four years ago when we moved down here to build solar in the foothills. When we first got here I was not certain this was such a great idea. Moving from an up-and-coming city like Fort Collins to a poor, quiet, rundown town like Walsenburg left me thinking,

“Is this a bad thing? Have I lost my mind?”

But resilience and patience got us through the difficult adjustment stage of building this home out in the foothills west of Walsenburg, and today I am supremely happy to be here now.

Note to myself: Allow LOTS of time for personal adjustment around major life changes.

And yes, we do find excellent ways to spend our days, even in retirement. We have learned to enjoy a much slower pace with lots of time to just be. I have also learned how to truly live in the present.

“There’s nothing sweeter than falling in love with the moment we’re given, the only one we have.” — Marcia Smalley

Another excerpt from one my books. This time its: How To Believe in Love Again: Opening to Forgiveness, Trust, and Your Own Inner Wisdom.

“We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

You would be crazy to continue on this path: Time for a new leap of faith…

Intuition is an essential tool to guide you towards a healthier sense of yourself and what you need to do next to attract what you want into your life.

It’s also time for my favorite Easter bunny joke!

Easter is my favorite time of year, because I was born around this time… a true Easter baby!

Here’s how the date of Easter is determined: “Easter falls on the first Sunday following the Paschal Full Moon, the full moon on or after 21 March, taken to be the date of the vernal equinox.”

Let’s see what some of my boomer blog friends have to say about springtime. Here’s one from a friend in Australia first:

Spring has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. Sue Loncaric from Sizzling Towards 60 & Beyond shares her thoughts on welcoming spring and the opportunity of new beginnings and possibilities: Ten things you can do to enjoy spring and also enrich your life with health and happiness.

Spring’s the time to do some life pruning and there’s no time like Easter to begin, says Carol Cassara over at Heart Mind Soul. Releasing what no longer serves us is a great way to celebrate renewal and rebirth.

Longer hours of light, the sun feels slightly warmer every day, the gray landscape begins to turn green, it must be the season when we spring forward. These experiences all inspired Meryl Baer of Six Decades and Counting to write her piece, “And Then There Was Light.”

Tom Sightings admits that he has a lot of nostalgia for the 1990s, when his kids were growing up and things were going well at work. But now in Can We Be Happy for the Rest of Our Lives? he examines how happy we are — and how happy we can be — in this new phase of life we call retirement.

Me, I’m cruising with gratitude that the sun still comes up everyday and spring always returns right on time. I feel so fortunate every day that I found the love of my life thirteen years ago.

Midlife really did create a kind of rebirth for me and then a whole new spiritual journey!

Last night, when I was having trouble sleeping, I remembered a marvelous spiritual experience I had back when Mike and I were still searching for the perfect place to retire. Here you go:

“Conchas” Living by Laura Lee Carter, April 2008

My husband Mike and I are spending our vacations these days, exploring possible destinations to retire to, just in case we can ever afford it. This year we spent a few days on a road trip through northeastern New Mexico.

We were drawn to a series of lakes north of Tucumcari: Ute Lake, Conchas Lake and Santa Rosa Lake. These are all state parks with nice facilities and beautiful but ever shrinking reservoirs as the drought continues down there. Two nights were spent camping at Conchas Lake State Park.

The first night felt like a spiritual awakening to me. Our tent was open at the top so I could see all the stars, and I don’t recall ever experiencing such amazing and overwhelming silence in my entire life. My personal account follows, written in the middle of the night:

In the perfect silence of a star-filled New Mexican night, I lie in my sleeping bag, contemplating the wonders of our universe. Yes, there are still places in America where one can marvel at the brilliant stars above, while getting lost in the silence of the surrounding wilderness.

Did a Native American woman lie in this exact same spot thinking similar thoughts many centuries before me? I feel so connected to the earth.

Living close to the earth increases my awareness of everything: the air temperature, the slightest breeze, the fragrances, the colors of the wildflowers and cacti, the occasional yelp of coyotes in the distance, the soaring hawks and vultures overhead. Time slows down.

The animal sounds serve to remind me that there was a time when we were simply prey to the many predators around us. We weren’t high-minded beings that thought that we had taken possession of the earth, but were instead just a potential meal to a hungry wolf or coyote nearby.

Those that study the earth say that the present drought is probably another eleven year cycle, and the rains will return. But we must all wonder if man has impacted the earth’s natural cycles so gravely that they may be forever changed. We shall see.

After Conchas Lake, we headed northwest to the Jemez Pueblo area. I rarely use the word “awesome”, but I can’t imagine a better description of the deep red canyons of the Jemez Mountains. They are a unique and wonderful vision to behold!

Have a sense of gratitude to everything, even difficult emotions, because of their potential to wake you up. ~ Pema Chödrön

Sometimes playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do

I was struck recently by a saying I heard in reference to horror movies:

Nothing is scarier than having no idea what is out there.

This seemed like an excellent metaphor for what can happen to us in midlife.

What I learned through my own experience is that sometimes playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do. Sure, you could stay in the same job, career, or relationship, living the same life indefinitely. That sounds safe, but is it?

What might you be missing by playing it safe?

In midlife we may realize, sometimes for the first time ever, that our time here on earth is running out. When it does, how will we feel as we look back over our lives?

This is a brief excerpt from my book: Find Your Reason To Be Here: The Search for Meaning in Midlife. It is only available in e-book format through Amazon. Feel free to contact me at MidlifeCrisisQueen@gmail.com if you would like to purchase one of my last few paper copies.