Last fall, the Women’s Center at the University of Connecticut (which I helped found back in the 70’s) had their 40th anniversary celebration.
For the occasion, they invited one of my long-time heroes, the renowned feminist activist,
Ms. Gloria Steinem as their
keynote speaker.
During her talk, she told a story of being asked what she saw as her greatest accomplishment.
Her answer? “I don’t know, I haven’t done it yet.”
Ms. Steinem has been at the forefront of the women’s movement for almost 50 years.
And besides being the author of several best-selling books, she has been the one to frame the issues that have led to so much progress for women and men throughout the world.
And because of her ability to stay calm and cool under pressure, she was frequently called upon to debate people offering sincere and often not-so-sincere questions.
During this particular Q&A session at the Women’s Center, someone asked if Ms. Steinem would mind sharing her age. She didn’t hesitate to tell the audience.
She is 78 years old.
At the age of 78, after a lifetime of groundbreaking contributions, she still believes that her greatest accomplishment has yet to happen.
Now I am 63 (will soon be 64, actually), and I find this truly inspiring, because I can really identify with this sentiment.
And I couldn’t help but think of all of you, our community at NICABM.
Ruth Buczynski, 2nd from the left, with Gloria Steinem and other early organizers of the University of Connecticut Women’s Center
As practitioners we have so much to offer. With our highly developed skills and expertise, each of us has no doubt contributed greatly to the lives of our patients.
But with our advanced training, we have the potential to make a huge impact far beyond even that.
So today, I want to challenge us to dream big. Our greatest accomplishment and contribution to the world may yet be ahead of us . . . no matter what our age.
If you let yourself, what would you dream of yet accomplishing? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts below.
Actually, as an elder, what I still want to accomplish is an inner shift, to be more fearless and more loving. It would appear that there is much to be accomplished in a short amount of time. We are facing a looming environmental crisis as well as whole systems breakdown.
Only a fearless, loving heart will help me to accomplishment what I will need to do, even tho I am not yet sure what that is.
How about feeling fear and acting in spite of it? I have been fearful most of my life and have learned to act while feeling fear activating ‘faithfully’ my sympathetic nervous system. I often tell my clients: “You are afraid? That is a wonderful, natural source of energy. How might you best direct this energy to help yourself and others?” My clients sometimes envision putting their fear in the passenger seat, buckling it in, taking the wheel, and off they go!
I want to share my healing gifts with multitudes, through various means — I want to be a healing & inspiring resource for many — I want to express my creativity through music, writing & art; & I want to further the causes of peace, human rights, & healing of Mother Earth & all her creatures. I want to learn to connect with beings/spirits on other planes. I want to deepen my relationships with loved ones & be fully present for them for the highest good of all of us.
I hope to retire and work for Hillary Clinton for President. I am 68. I am still dreaming and have goals for the future.
What a great question, Ruth! The best is yet to come for me, too. I’ve applied and am about to receive my Medicare card.. and this has lit a fire under me! I’m an LPC in private practice, have been enjoying all the mindfulness courses here and have been “studying” mindfulness on my own for quite some time now. With the many body-mind-spirit applications mindfulness has in our everyday lives, I want to continue to study as I find a way to center my life around imparting this information to as many people as possible. I believe that cultivating a mindfulness path is the only way we’re going to grow as a society. And how exciting it is that so many of us are working on spreading the word!!!
I want to reach out to my Jamaican friend who posted a comment.
Hopeful we’ll be moving to Bermuda. I have an exciting project in mind, but need to share it with the people of Bermuda first. So I can’t let the cat out of the bag just yet.
Yep, even though I have done a lot with family and work, I still think I have a lot more to offer. I have worked with children, adolescents and adults of both genders for a very long time in various settings.
Now I have taken a hiatus. I am concentrating on learning some IT skills and writing books and publishing on-line.
I hope to get back in the real world in a few months time, but I have taken a long leave from face to face kinds of work. Maybe this will continue my life’s work. Hoping to have a private practice going, but psychotherapy and coaching are not big hits in my country.
At 52 I don’t even feel like I have started. My dream is to have a foundation to help people get an education (haven’t figured out all the details yet). I will get there eventually!
I loved reading this as I am 60 something also and feel I am just beginning to live. I take care spiritually, mentally, physically and emotionally and am so inspired by all the new I’m learning that I want at least 60 more years because there’s so much I want to do. Life is getting better than ever.
I’m with you, Ann! I’m 66 and just starting up a whole new phase of my global service on the leading edge of the new paradigm for health and wellness and healing! With changes in the field of aging and vitality I fully expect to live another 66 years is superb health with even more abilities and talents to share 🙂
I am 67 and working on a dissertation that I hope will focus attention on the interaction between teachers and children who have been exposed to risk factors that delay their social-emotional development and make it difficult for them to behave appropriately in the classroom. These children begin a negative trajectory as early as kindergarten. I wonder if externalizing behavior by the student triggers residual, unresolved traumatic memories in some teachers that set up a pattern of defense resulting suspension, expulsion and eventually drop-out of the student.
Just a few years ago, I would not have been able to wonder, let alone complete a dissertation. I think the years of life experience as a person and a clinician have prepared me for this task. My dream is that schools and the teachers in them will more effectively be a “second line of defense” for children when the first line – families – fail them.
This is indeed a valid and important study. I wish you success as I wish healing for all through awareness and study such as what you will generate here.
I would love to read your dissertation when you’re through! I work in the public schools and know exactly what you mean! It would be sooo helpful for teachers to gain a deeper understanding about the dynamics involved in such situations and more than that to learn how to best respond in the moment to these students in each developmental stage.
Wendy, your work is so critical and I’m glad you’re working on it. I’m very interested in reading your dissertation at any point of the process!
So today more than ever gathering 64 years of life, struggle, radiance and challenges, I, too am dreaming. After all we all need new conversations which take us out of the known. We are only as good as our teachers so for me I’ve taken up the teacher of “inner knowing” my own that is to start new conversations and create new dreams to accomplish. WHOA….that’s what I would say to my newest teacher……
Much gratitude….
I just celebrated 27 years as a therapist (third career) at a major HIV/AIDS Medical Center in Washington, DC and received my Medicare card two weeks ago, so that lets you know how old I am.
I’m also a 31 year member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and have devoted my life to social justice and peace issues. I’m rejoicing in the recent Supreme Court rulings on DOMA and Prop 8 since my partner of 20 years and I will now be treated as full citizens of this country with the benefits everyone else has access to. My primary goal over the remaining years of my life is to help bring about the demise of plutocratic (crony) Capitalism and the unfair influence that the super wealthy have in the politics of this and all other countries. I’m working with groups like People for the American Way, the Network of Spiritual Progressives, Move to Amend, MoveOn.org, etc. to legislatively reverse the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC that allows Corporations to have unlimited control over the democratic process by spending as much money as they want to control our democracy. If I’m able to make a dent in this corrupt and unfair economic system to allow for greater financial equality for all this planet’s people, I will feel I’ve spent my life very well.
Joseph, thank you so much for all of your tireless sociopolitical work. I appreciate you so much!
My spouse and I, together for 16 years and in our 40’s, will now be able to finally file joint federal taxes with a savings of about 40,000 a year + in taxes which we can now pour into more charities instead of into the federal pockets that are already both bulging and busted.
How our relationship as fine citizens both in the helping professions of medicine and psychotherapy,
and she being a top tax payer, has been illegitimate all these years is a mystery. But bravo that I lived to see this day!!
WOW! What an inspiration!! In this fast paced and competitive world I often find myself at 47 feeling as though I have failed and not accomplished as much as I should have by this time. My focus for many years has been working with trauma and bringing the best of what the field of trauma therapy has to offer to children and adults who are struggling through life without tools that could bring them relief and wholeness. I would LOVE to see the therapies that are so forward thinking and effective (many of which you present through NICABM) available to low and no income individuals and families who otherwise don’t have access. I want to do some original research and complete my PhD and continue the work of trauma therapy to bring healing.
If we live we gradually age no matter what the stage.
Even the best of us get caught in and subscribe to age-specific stereotypes; we fail to differentiate between olders an elders.
Olders tend to buy into socially promoted stereotypes and to live within the confines of those self-imposed restraints; I think they do themselves a disservice whereas elders keep on truckin’.
I’m 76 and still learning “tricks” (like teaching qigong to elders). My appetite for knowledge and understanding is insatiable; my desire to serve and contribute has, if anything, intensified. I’m more creative and engaged than at any other stage – in my life. I have the curiosity and playfulness of a child (and yes, I like kids). The clock is tickin’. The word precious comes come to mind.
As the saying goes, it’s not over until it’s over 🙂
Phil, you have inspired me so much today! I am 47 and often dread getting older, frail, losing my health, autonomy, and ending up in assisted living like my mother. She lives in a nice facility but the people seem so overall sad and discouraged. They need more activities, stimulation, healing modalities, inspiration, connection. We are an aging population of baby boomers and the work you are doing is so vitally important. Thank you so very much!! I like you want to remain fully alive until I die….and I wish I didn’t have to succumb to the latter.
Hi – I am half way thru chemo for b cell lympjhoma (2nd time around) – now on MD Anderson Hospital protocol with inent to cure – now 84 – planning to finish research project at UC Davis – “Couiples Becoming Parents Together” at UCD (using Nancy Bardacke’s protocol re: Mindfulness as preparation for childbirth (book available at Amazon). Hoping to create process for preventive intervention starting in pregnancy – transition to parenthood – and first few months post-partum.
Gerhard Schroth (Gleisweiller Germany) is planning to teach Prenatal Bonding in Sacramento, CA in November after APPPAH conference in Asilomar – look up Prenatal Bonding with Gerhard.
Donis
As someone who is in her 50s and has just finished chemo, I just wanted you to know how much of an inspiration your comment was for me.
My greatest accomplishment to date is the ability I’ve had to transform my extremely difficult upbringing, and my deep emotional pain, into my most valued treasure.
This has given me the opportunity to love and to help others, and also the ability to profoundly enjoy life today.
It’s important for me to NAME my greatest accomplishment to date.
That doesn’t mean that this will be it, but to date, that is it…
Vivian, yours is a tremendous accomplishment indeed with the icing on the cake being your generous giving back support and care to others!
Well, spread over 4 years of cogelle, the $5,000 won’t do much. But that’s because institutions produce an immense amount of waste. If you don’t believe me, compare American social spending to German or even French spending. Overall, the levels of spending are nearly the same. It’s just that France and Germany rely on means-tested cash benefits more, while the US relies on byzantine tax deductions and piecemeal programs like school lunches.As for foreign policy, I don’t believe Obama will be better than Clinton by one bit. He’s endorsed the Bush line on Iran, just like Clinton. He opposed the Iraq war, but post-2004, he and Clinton have the same Senate voting record on Iraq. He may be even more dangerous. With Clinton, there’s a good chance she talks tough to sound moderate, but will have a moderate-realist foreign policy in power. With Obama, there isn’t one; from his early endorsement of aggression against Iran in 2004, I can tell he’s probably going to start a war in order to look moderate.And America’s position in the world is permanently shot. Talking about American leadership today is as appropriate as talking about French leadership in 1876, or British leadership in 1947. There are ways to repair it in the long run, but all Americans outside New York and Los Angeles, and even many within these two cities, are going to hate the idea.
I too see the future as the best to come!! After years of trauma counseling, I am now helping deliver a course called Avatar that is helping people evolve! It is very exciting… people wake up and realize that they are actually so much more powerful than they ever realized!! They have the power to create what they want in their lives. They shed all the old indoctrination and get back in touch with who they really are! Talk about an exciting goal… The goal of Avatar is to create an Enlightened Planetary Civilization! Wow, what could be more exciting! I am so happy to have had the training and experience that I have. I do believe that we are changing and that the work we do in our own consciousness effects the collective consciousness! This is an exciting time to be alive!!
Yes, I too am an admirer of Gloria Steinem. She’s a woman who has stood, face forward, for women. She’s gutsy the way I would love to be, and AM (personally). But you would never know it after birth traumas and shaken baby that caused me to be developmentally delayed, a diagnosis of autism (forget faces), having echo narcissistic tendencies, and worst of all, I keep defaulting to the reptilian vagal when I’m even slightly stressed( i.e., I lose my words, cannot *think*, faces in front of me mist out, dissociation happens, I get frustrated, out-of-sync, silent, embarrassed, unboundaried and lose hope at every instance.
So, it’s shooting for the moon, but I would like to start *defaulting* to the prefrontal cortex! I have asked one doc if Amen Clinic has a way of stimulating the limbic to prefrontal affective links. He says they classically do this in animals with implanted electrodes. My nutrition and exercise is being monitored and the authorities that be, have given me an impression that good food, supplementation, exercise, reading, consistently playing brain exercises like Lumosity, and as Porges says- daring to step out of my comfort zone socially, can and will get past this. Talk about a lifelong struggle!
I am sixty and would like the world view of mental deficiencies be thought of as the RULE rather than abnormal, and nothing to be ashamed of, just faced and tackled with new resiliency and hope. I think President Clinton was an exemplary example of choosing consciousness and personal responsibility, seeing a larger picture than his personal agendas. I truly admire him for this, and would model myself after him in that way. I think clear cognition can only become *mindful* after the affective layer is brought to the fore.
In the socio-political spectrum, I would like to be able to help (by being transparent) to change our world-view of all the so-called underdogs. The States (the melting pot once again) are in that strange and uncertain position of reorganization after a major paradigm shift and acceptance of the unfamiliar, which represents a huge transition into a higher state of consciousness.
By espousing natural cures (over Big Pharma), psychological and emotional transparency (over shame), the *Jungian* choice to bring the unconscious (affective, developmental) into conscious understanding, I hope to pave a way and give license to many frightened people to come forward with new hope that their lives can improve, if not blossom.
As Kathleen Dunn has stated before me: Ruth B…you are wonderful. Thanks for this incredible forum. 😉
I am right there with you Ruth. I feel so privileged at this age to be working with the Trauma Resiliency Model helping teach lay health workers in Haiti and researching the effectiveness of the model there and here in the US working with veterans and marginalized groups. I am grateful to have the energy and passion for the work as well as the clarity of vision about bringing this model to the world. The most exciting part to me is seeing that non mental health professionals can be taught skills to re-regulate their nervous systems after trauma, empowering them to then teach their own cohort right where they are.
Time is a simple measure. Space taken, used, walked through, experienced is a complicated measure.
Age measures physical growth in physical years. We need a new word for measuring growth of spirit!
I propose the new word ARCIQUOZ to mean “a measure of the growth of an individual’s spirit.”
To create a new word, one must go to the back end of meaning, just like the back end of a website is the launching pad of information. Here is the meaning behind this word:
A = azimuth, beginning of the alphabet, conception of a life, start, shape of A connects two slanted timelines.
R = sounds like the word “are” which is present of “to be” and sounds like “our” which is what I own and you own, our shared Reality.
C = sounds like the word “see” which is what we need to do with the eyes of our soul; c also starts the word Curvature–one of those words/meanings that makes physics possible.
I = I is in the middle of this word because I am always in the middle of everything I move through. You are too!
Q = sounds like queue or the lineup. Life is like a queue of dominoes all nicely arranged to stand up in a line until one of them reaches a tipping point that affects all of them.
U = sounds like YOU, the other thing that is outside of the I of me that makes relationship possible. Relationship is the foundation of all life experience.
O = Oh, the round symbol of O, the infinity we all encounter which inspires awe.
Z = zenith, pinnacle, summit, what you reach at the end of life. Z is also the zigzag of the spiral pattern of life.
I wish all readers here a wonderful day full of all kinds of poetry and meaning!
Sincerely,
Mary
I’m well in my 60’s and admire how beautiful you look and how “forwardly” you think. I don’t know the answer to your question about what’s next, but I so appreciate your asking the question. Now that I think about it, I am beginning to offer a new service in my practice about assisting clients in defining what’s next after “retirement”: new career, part-time work, travel, hobby, volunteer work.
Or what? That may turn out to be my answer, but I’m not sure yet.
Actually, spirituality is more appealing to me, but not sure how I want to include that professionally, except that I do naturally all the time.
Ruth, we are very nearly the same age and while I should be thinking about retirement I’m actually thinking about what’s next professionally. I am working with a local university to hopefully implement a graduate applied neuroscience program to help put more of the exciting findings from the fields of neuroscience into the hands of more mental health practitioners in a responsible way. Academic training programs are lagging far behind clinical application as clinicians do not have the luxury of awaiting academic acceptance and promotion. Ms. Steinem is a tremendous inspiration keeping me eager to see what comes next. Thank you for sharing.
I am currently age 77, producing a film that I believe will help millions of divorcing parents across the U.S. and also help change society in the way that divorces are handled for the most part. Most parents have no idea that how they handle their divorce can inflict emotional scars on their children that may have long lasting results and may be passed on down to the next generation. However, if parents know the steps of how to accomplish a more peaceful divorce and how to help themselves destress with self care tools such as Mindfulness meditation and energy psychology, counseling and other tools, they can then begin to help both themselves and their children during this traumatic time of their lives and perhaps avoid some of the violence we see today. I believe that a lot of the violence our young people are now engaging in may be due to what they see modeled for them in their families especially during a traumatic divorce. Children’s unexpressed feelings of anger and fear and rage go underground and can be the seeds of some of the current violence. My foundation has an award winning production team, Larry King is our narrator and I am looking for underwriters for completion funding. We are submitting this film to national PBS when the rough cut is completed as my local PBS has suggested.
Mimi,
Have you contacted the Goldie Hawn Foundation? She is very dedicated to teaching mindfulness to children via teacher-training.
I have to agree with Gloria. We live our life, do the best we can and be grateful for our time here. I refuse to look back at my failures and accomplishments because I don’t know if my accomplishments are my failures or my failures my accomplishments. Although I would like to think I will make a great accomplishment in this life I choose to not know and live my life in truth.
I envision more fully developing my unique Reiki/Spiritual Guidance Integrative Healing model to help people heal – for palliative as well as hospice care; for stress reduction, health and wellness; meaning and purpose. To help people connect body, mind, and spirit, words alone are not enough.
I envision continuing my Master’s thesis research in a PhD program; to bring the Spiritual/Healer back to medicine as an essential part; to be that bridge for humanity, with its attendant emotional, physical and spiritual pain, one who walks between worlds for healing self and others.
I envision bringing the experience of wholeness and love into being.
Another version of this column used the headline “Gloria Steinem and me.” “and me”?? As a respecter of persons and respecter of elementary school grammar and punctuation,
I mourn the decline in the public use of correct grammar.
Professionally, it is a dream of being able to help all couples learn inter and intrapersonal skills and how to be mindfully self aware as a way of life.. In pursuing that dream, it has become apparent that some couples are quite able to grasp these skills, while others continue to flounder around. Now am wondering if it has anything to do with their early attachments and an inablility to integrate parts of their brain. Currently taking Dan Siegels course on Mindsight to learn about the brain and strategies to assist couples in understanding the importance of differentiation and integration.
Thank you Ruth for sharing!! You and your actions and insight and accomplishments are inspiring! Gloria Steinem has always served as a role model and I adore and admire her strength and courage. I very much appreciate her quote; seems as if this ideology helps her to forge ahead, in search of peace, justice and most especially progress. I hope to do the same as I continue in my career.
I’m on my way to turning 71 and I still work full time. Why would I retire when I am doing work that keeps me growing, learning, and feeling fulfilled.
Last year, I became a Red Cross Volunteer in disaster mental health. I’ve learned so much and met such wonderful people. It’s taught me another lesson: never stop trying new things.
While I’m not ready to cite my finest accomplishment to date, I can say that my favorite trait is that I’m an empowerment junkie. I love to help other people grow.
I think I agree with Gloria Steinem. You can’t get an accurate count of the horses until they’re all in the barn and the door is closed.
I would like to see myself having a body, mind ,spirit, healing center.
Ms Steinem has inspired my life both directly and by the nature of her life’s work. And now she inspires me once again as I find myself knowing that life accomplishments are an ongoing process. I turned 64 this year, back in school, and finding the resources that speak to my inner witness. And it’s women like Ms. Steinem and organizations like NACIBM that inspire me to accomplish what I can in this life to make it a better world for everyone.
My best yet accomplishment is to encourage young girls and women to use their voice.
In terms of creating what they desire and want.
I always had a dream to be a psychotherapist, but that’s a work in progress.
I recall Germaine Greer saying the same thing after she turned fifty. I would never have believed that there was so much vitality in the Golden years when I was younger but now that I am in them myself, I understand why they are called the Golden years. There are so many ways to live life and so many adventures to come. I look forward to every day and feel that I am still just coming into myself. Perhaps that is what wisdom is all about.
Undoing addiction, so that all can experience
Their free state.
My dream would be assisting the therapy profession in moving away from a strict medical model of viewing human behavior. I would love to see a decrease in diagnosing and an increase in healing. Psychotherapy can be a powerful healing process when practitioners remember why they are doing it (to help people transform their lives) instead of being slaves to insurance company guidelines, lifeless evidence based practices and pharmaceutical pushers. We as therapists really can help change the world and I would love to be a part of that process.
Paul, you already are assisting the therapy profession significantly both as a therapist and professor who thinks, envisions, teaches and role models for others consciousness outside the “box”!
I am 72 and proud to be continuing my work as a therapist, even though financial and physical challenges abound. I now work from a home office in a small town after losing my dream office in Austin, TX to market pressures. After losing that beautiful office and all my savings to market pressures (Austin is FULL of therapists) I overcame situational depression and a year later my dream of doing therapy into the final years of my life is alive, growing; I am able to be of value to people of all ages. I, too, have idolized Gloria Steinem for all my adult life and agree that I have not yet done the best thing I will do in life. Blessings on Gloria and Ruth!
Very inspirational. Her words made me feel that I can relax, live my purpose and not be in a rush. Take it easy and see where you are lead! Be grateful for what we have, Surrender control and allow your person to evolve. We are always changing…I hope.
I am 63 too, and Gloria Steinem has been someone I look up to. She has been speaking for me all of my adult life, and I am grateful to her. I love her message here. It’s a powerful reminder of what is most important in life, what gives it meaning, for all people, of every color and gender and circumstance. I am lucky now to have the gift of time and freedom, if not unlimited funds, but most important, healing from grief and trauma, good health and a good mind, to continue to learn and grow and serve others.Thanks, Ruth, for all that you do.
I am truly inspired by Gloria Steinam’s comments. I am 49 years old and just began to pursue my degree. I truly believe that my greatest accomplishments are ahead of me. That does not mean I don’t value prior accomplishments. I am just beginning to find out who I am and what I am capable of.
I am not a therapist but love to follow this web page. I am a survivor of trauma. I am now entering the thriving years of my life.
I would like to instil a sense of respect for each and every living being in the human minds and help them realize that “we’re but a strand in the web of life whatever we do to the web we do to our self.” – a quote by Chief Seattle
“About “greatest accomplishment. Her answer? “I don’t know, I haven’t done it yet.” :
I feel it’s also very helpful to see what has been our greatest accomplishment so far.
Other wise, all one’s efforts and whatever achievements might appear as nothing much, entailment forms of discouragement and depression.
And then, to have a further great motivation for more.
i.e.: see what one has been able to achieve, foster or gain confidence in one’s potential, and move on for more, for deeper, wider.
I followed 2 of yours webinar series last winter, forwarded the link to a friend, and we greatly appreciate the subtle understanding and heart qualities of your team, thank you.
Sylvie
Everyday is my greatest accomplishment. Everyday when I at the bedside of the dying and I cam able to provide even the smallest comfort and ease for them…then that becomes my greatest accomplishment. There is no tomorrow, no yesterday…only that moment with the precious being. If I preoccupy my time with the future and think about what will BE my greatest acomplishment, then I have lost the awarness and mindfulness of the momet and therefore…have lost everything and this precious being did not receive all that I have to offer.
Help to organize a nationwide network to deliver PTSD treatments which substantially improve the rate of “cure”, through expanded availability of intensive training in latest best practices. I believe that such a capability would have a major impact on our country’s healthcare costs and bring greater inner peace to millions. I would enjoy working with NICABM on this endeavor.
Peter
The universe works through me to be of service. As I heal myself, I heal others. I still do not know what I want to ‘be’, therefore I AM
Infinite love & appreciation to you Ruth
I’m 84 and I think my real achievement is that knowing there is always more to learn and more I can do. Life is really wonderful, most days.
I love your work Ruth and the people you have brought into my life. This has given me so much more to learn.
Thank you
Joan Marshall
I love the quesetion. I am a counseling psychologist and have practiced for over 30 years. I work in the Student Counseling Center at Dalhousie University. Interestingly I feel far more humble with my accomplishments today than I did years ago when I was younger and beginning my career. My greatest accomplishments are working with and helping tomorrows leaders to feel better about themselves and others.
GLORIA STEINEM IS ALSO ONE OF MY GREAT HEROES, SHE HAS NOT SHIED AWAY FROM PROGRESS/CONFLICT. I THINK HAVING GREAT HEROES, WHO BLAZED TRAILS AND MADE OUTSTANDING ACCOMPLISHMENTS, WHEN PEOPLE SAID IT COULD NOT AND SHOULD NOT BE DONE, GIVES US COURAGE TO BLAZE OUR TRAILS, WHETHER THEY BE BIG OR SMALL. ACCORDING TO JANE GOODALL, ANOTHER OF MY GREAT HEROES, ‘WE ALL MAKE A DIFFERENCE, WILL IT BE POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE’. PEACE & HARMONY TO ALL.
I have been working as a clinical psychologist for over 50 years and now find myself teaching a lot of work shops where I try to pass on my wisdom to others. Meanwhile I am always learning new things from others and that will never stop. My quest now is to seek more inner fulfillment —a quieter path with less fan fare. I guess this sounds like a spiritual path that has little to do with achievements and more to do with seeking an inner peace where I do not have to accomplish anything.
it is true the best is yet to come, however all that we have done, even if the self is not aware, that all our contributions large or small, are of immense value, whilst creating a space and level of acceptance and understanding, for the next contributions to be added, continuosly growing and evolving. A dream of accomplishing a stronger connection of inner guidance for all to be awakened to and trust, act upon and follow. This comes in a myraid of expressions from each individuals contributions on all levels. Personally I would dream of being more centred in all my expressions of which others could feel, understand and know to be apart of themself. Is it really a doing thing or a being expression, I prefer the latter. Blessings to all as we all journey on the path.
Reminds me of Milton H Erickson’s mother in her later years: ‘the best years lie ahead’…
and Dag Hammarskjold: ‘For all that has been, Thank you. For all that shall be, Yes.’
i look to ‘accomplish’: being grateful to life until and through my dying time, and spending more time with my wife.