The Freedom to Change: What it means in later life

I’d been busy, way too busy, living my life, even rushing through my life, to pay attention to the things I deeply wanted to be different in it. I’d given myself occasional opportunities to slow down and notice—a series of sessions with a meditation teacher, intermittent meditation, writing two books about change—without really confronting those things that nicked at me when I did notice them. I would journal about what I wanted to be different. Occasionally I would write myself a plan, and sometimes even begin to implement the plan. But other things swept in as higher priorities for most of my adulthood. For me there were three themes that kept surfacing—my weight and general health, my marriage, and my spiritual life.

As I have aged, the signs for change have become apparent, of course. I have taken medication for hypertension for about two years, and cholesterol medication for a year. I knew I wasn’t getting enough exercise. I would vacillate between giving in to a thickening waistline, and swimming five days a week. I often felt logy and slept poorly. I was carrying 30 extra pounds. These were the same 30 I’d gained and lost for almost 20 years. While I care very much about my appearance, there was no article of clothing I’d put on and look in the mirror and say WOW!

The marriage I was in was my third. I’d decided when we got married (my idea) that if I couldn’t see ways to make this one work, I’d give up on marriage entirely. This one was better in many ways than the other two. This husband was honorable, as smart as I am, and liked the same activities I do. He’d been rich when we married (I liked that) and was no longer rich due to market shifts and the industry in which he’d spent his adult working years. We bickered much of the time we were in our house together, and since he is retired and I work at home, that was a lot of the time. The bickering sapped my energy and made it harder and harder to remain positive about the rest of my life. I saw my parents’ marriage in my own. They had spent the years after we three were grown in much the same housebound bickering in which I now found myself. I’d hated visits to my parents when I was in my twenties and thirties and escaped after three days, using any excuse to get away from their constant tension. Yet, here I was, a card carrying member of “the Bickersons.”

Finally, I’d been a believer in some kind of God for my whole life, and had lost the plot in the years with my non-believing husband. I longed for some spiritual connection, some home that felt like a safe haven, but could no longer connect with my childhood or even my adulthood church home. I’d experimented, but only half-heartedly, with more liberal theology than even the liberal church in which I’d grown up. While my longing was real, my search was half-hearted at best. I’d think about going to Quaker meeting, but never go. I went to a Unity church for four months but quit when my travel schedule kept me away for a few weeks. For each of these change possibilities I knew I wanted something to be different, but I didn’t know how to go about making each area different in ways that would feel positive, and that would stick.

At 64 and with several false starts at a third book, I decided to see if I could make meaningful change in these three areas, and then write about them. Originally I wanted to connect the positive psychology movement to these changes, to demonstrate that by using only strength-based methods, I could make headway with three longstanding issues in my life, and with these methods I could, in fact, change them permanently. I don’t think I knew what a tall order changing three things that might even have been genetic, to some degree, would be. It must be said though, that I have a history of stepping off of cliffs into air that is previously unexplored, or thoroughly explored to the degree that others say stepping off into that specific air is impossible, and finding myself upright and unhurt at some landing point. And so I stepped off.

My plan was to engage one or more coaches. I was and continue to be both an executive and life coach myself and I’d had very good luck working with two other coaches when writing my last book. At first I thought I’d be able to lose weight on my own. My internist asked me to lose 15 pounds. No sweat, I thought. But after four months, I’d lost only one pound. Sitting next to me at a coaching meeting shortly after this rather humiliating appointment was someone I knew slightly, and knew to be a weight management coach. How obvious, I thought! I asked her to work with me and we began an exploration that has lasted for nine months now. For my relationship work with my husband, I knew I wanted to use the work of John Gottman, probably the best known marriage expert and scholar in the country today. As it happened a coach I’d been doing some personal work with, mentioned that she was taking a certification course in Gottman’s method. Whooppee! As it also happened, Jane (this coach) needed guinea pigs for her certification. I spoke to my husband and we agreed to be her guinea pigs. What luck. I felt like we were going to make progress here for sure! Finally, my spirituality goal was meditating every day. I didn’t do it. I had many excuses but no practice. I’d managed to meditate regularly for periods of six months in the past, but I just couldn’t find the motivation now. I live near several Buddhist retreat and teaching centers. I took meditation courses again. I loved how I felt when I did meditate but didn’t repeat the practice. It was like having the hiccups for a long while. I’d do it and then not for days and then do it and then not. I’d left the last fringy religious community of which I’d almost become a member—it was too Jesus focused for me. And I was adrift. I stayed adrift for quite a while until I met another coach, a speaker at our monthly coaching meeting, who happened also to facilitate a weekly gathering of folks interested in exploring their spirituality. This community felt like home the second time I went, five months ago. It is increasingly indispensible to me as resource, support and grounding. It has the intellectual teeth to hold my mind, and the openness and sharing to hold my heart.

I have lost 30 pounds. I did not go on a diet. I did not have lists of what I could or couldn’t eat. I spent lots of time figuring out with MJ, my weight coach, what had worked in the past and what new things I wanted to try. I kept track of everything that went into my mouth on a convenient website. No more looking every item up in a calorie counter. I’ve spent lots more time walking the steep hills around where I live. I’ve seen many more views of San Francisco Bay than ever before. I’ve watched seasons change and appreciated the rain as well as the sun. I’ve swum, but not compulsively. I have not given up chocolate. Not on your life.

My relationship with my husband has changed, with and since our coaching with Jane. Each of us has strong ego needs. We each are proud, often selfish people. We each want our own way. I’ve come to find that not fighting is preferable to getting my way, at least some of the time. If I don’t make a stink about every bowl unwashed or every forgotten favor, he is also more generous with is overlooking of my faults. We walk a fine, sharp edge. Sometimes we pitch over into hurling insults and sometimes we are able to catch our balance on the side of serenity, even humor. We can do that more of the time.

My spiritual needs are met. The community I’ve found feeds me such that I want to give more of myself, my resources and my gifts in order to grow in the community, and to grow the community itself. I have friends there. While I see them only on Saturdays when we meet, they are as precious to me as friends I see more frequently or friends who live closer to me.

My weight loss and resulting health changes (I no longer need to take hypertension or cholesterol medication) have been entirely positive. My spiritual life is a joy and a comfort to me. My relationship journey has had its ups and downs, but as a result of achieving the other two, I have a more compassionate and positive self image, and therefore a more expansive and forgiving approach to my interactions with my husband, Murray. I don’t mean by this that I necessarily have reason to forgive, not at all. What I mean is that I’m better able to hold my tongue and wait to see if something he has said is actually critical or only seems that way to my ears. Often it is the latter. My expansiveness is toward our relationship, not toward him or me. I can hold it better; see it in its entirety instead of the imagined slight of the moment. He and I are both less defensive, and better able to apologize. We are on the same page about many more things (the different pages were the source of much of the bickering). We laugh together about our children, both his and mine. We increasingly seem to see them as ours rather than belonging to one or the other. They are adults, of course, but even so, they’re not without parental challenge.

My interest now is in finding out about what other people want to change, or even if they have had something like the same experience I am having. I want to create community around this idea, so that we can share resources, helpful hints, and mutual support. My idea is that we might do this via a virtual community, a webinar that I’ll start in June. I’ll also continue to write about this and to offer what I’ve found as chapters for a very nominal fee to the participants in the webinar and (I hope) resulting supportive community.