A Snapshot in Time for Women 55+ to Evaluate Their Life
Take a snapshot of this moment in time.
Reflect and plan to move forward step-by-step to live a more intentional, passionate, purposeful and joy-filled life.
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Where Are You Now? - A Preamble
I want to help you see the timeline of your life from a different perspective - getting a bird’s eye view - so that, in the future, you can start to live more intentionally. Knowledge is power.
You were asked to think about and highlight the events and experiences that brought you to where you are today. It is essential to see the big picture and understand your life differently. I challenged you to draw out your timeline to give you a visual reference and make reflecting on your life substantially easier.
I then asked you to reflect and communicate what you learned in a way that was powerful for you. My reasonings were two-fold.
Firstly, our lives are worth examining. We often go from task-to-task to event-to-event and experience to experience, much like that metal ball in a pinball machine. We might glide smoothly, get knocked around, or do some knocking ourselves. We might learn some lessons and have experiences that are good, bad or indifferent. Eventually, we fall down the hole, and points are racked up. But the scene is a powerless experience.
Secondly, it is crucial to examine our lives hard to learn lessons. Then, we can move forward more confidently and learn to make decisions that serve our best interests for a better, more meaningful life. And creating things more concretely—visually, auditorily, or kinesthetically—helps us gain a deeper understanding.
The questions now forming are these:
Where are you right now at this point in your life?
What are your experiences and thoughts as you live this one day you are living right now?
How would you describe your life?
Are you happy with your experiences as they are?
What would you like to do in the future so that you live your life with intention?
The Now Can be Loopy
This is a no-judgement zone. It is not a time to beat ourselves up. Instead, let’s get curious.
Events and experiences propel us along. We get caught up in tasks, appointments, and meetings. Other people draw us into their lives. We try to please many people or appease the voices looping in our heads.
We must clean the house, shop, run errands, prepare meals, and clean ourselves. At this time of year, we may have to shovel the snow. We get caught up in our social media feeds, turn on the TV, and surf on our couch or easy chair.
Our parents may need care, and our children, grandchildren, or partners could demand our time and energy. Work may be stressful, or the retirement shock may leave us paralyzed. In addition, our health challenges are increasing.
Drama happens in our lives that we feel we have to respond to - be it with ourselves, our family members, our friends, our neighbourhoods, or the world.
We may often feel happy with what is happening or what we have accomplished. But there can also be strong feelings of dissatisfaction, frustration, or confusion, and we want to zone out with our self-medication or activity of choice. We overeat, overdrink, get very talkative or shut ourselves down and become uncommunicative. We oversleep or don’t sleep enough. Maybe we can binge on Netflix. I see you - Korean dramas. :)
Or there may be a feeling of unease that we can’t identify, and time seems to be slipping away.
There is a Way to Ladder Up
It may be time to get a clearer picture of where we are at this point in our lives. A selfie snapshot we create in the now. A “picture” frozen in time. It could be a visual representation. It could be an oral rendering that we tape. We create something like a song, a rap, a poem, or our story out loud into an audio file on our phone. It could be a playlist we create with songs we search on our app to describe our feelings. It could be a drama or dance we perform.
Consider this a brainstorming session to get at your truth. After completing your snapshot, set aside time to reflect on what you see and have learned. Then, jot down or record the reality of the good, bad, and ugly portrait you created. Do this with a curious eye. Remember our no-judgement rule.
From there, you can make plans for improvements because you are working up the growth ladder of life. This may be a time to have a discerning eye toward your future. Ask yourself important questions:
What events, experiences, people or thoughts do I want to eliminate from my life? What does not serve me well and harms me?
What pieces in the portrait of my life please me, and how can I enhance them to bring me more joy?
What experiences in my life do I consider bringing in so that I am enriched?
What decisions can I learn to make that will help me live a more purposeful life and live my life with intention?
A Challenge for You:
Create a snapshot of your life as it is right now.
Reflect on what you have learned.
Create a plan to move forward to live your life more intentionally - step-by-step.
Celebrate the YOU that you have been, the YOU that you are now, and the YOU that you will become. You are amazing!
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