Flight-Focused Future Surroundings

“Clutter is not just physical stuff. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships, and bad habits. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.”

-Eleanor Brownn

It’s amazing the amount of physical unconsciousness that can surround us in life…simply because of the wild card of “sentimentality” that we can often play.

I have to admit that I’m one who can fall into that trap, either by abdicating responsibility and claiming my upbringing as shaping me that way (mawkish “stuff” all over the house; Dad’s shed full of everything he “might need one day”) or my zodiac proclivity as a sentimental Leo.  Yet, sooner rather than later in moving into midlife, I’m onto the seductive design of the trap and at least on the way to one day claiming “that gig is up!”

I can be grateful for both a partner coming into my life who leans toward the practical and dispassionate as well as a growing sense of what it will take to become a true Back Forty Freedom Flier.

Whether my mother encouraged me to hold onto items because I might want to “look at them when I get old” or my father was the garage and shed black-hole filler does not determine my Big Game Back Forty Future…if I get and remain conscious.

To live inside of the philosophy that “the best is yet to come and, babe, won’t it be fine” as well as the belief that “I have yet to do what I came here to do” means that my eyes, ears, environments, mind and heart must be forward-focused vs. rear-view-mirror fixed.  Living in that paradigm requires being nimble, quick, light and bright…without the weight (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) of past, past, past globbing onto me at every turn.

I don’t need to watch 10 episodes of Hoarders or even to memorize and recite all passages of “The Japanese Art of Tidying Up” in order to awaken my need for Back Forty above-the-surface oxygen. These tools may serve to initially inspire me, but the critical and necessary ocular redirect toward what is in front of me (in life, purpose, passion, play) vs. what has taken place behind me is the key action to take.

Dropping past-based ballast and replacing with future-focused environmental influences creates lightness and directional guidance.  Exchanging the diploma for a dream board?  Substituting an old picture with a graphic plan? Swapping a souvenir for a framed list of intentions?  All are ways to detach from the lines so that our Back Forty Balloon can gain the altitude and attitude for a second half/best half impact.

“The true heart of organizing is about gaining your freedom.”

-Unknown

Why You Should be Thankful for Your Crises

Crisis.

It’s bad, right? After all, the definition of crisis is a time of intense difficulty, trouble, or danger. How could something dangerous or intensely difficult possibly be good?

What if I told you that a crisis can actually be a great thing and that you should be thankful for all of the crises in your life that you have endured?

Take a moment to read this quote:

Now, take some time to really think about it. All of the crises you have ever gone through have brought you where you stand today. Think about all of those crises as experiments used to learn new things about yourself and your life. What have you learned?

Maybe you learned about what you value in a life partner through a particularly nasty breakup. Or maybe you learned that a particular field of work just isn’t for you after losing a job that you were too scared to leave. Whatever crises you have gone through, I believe that they have all been for the best.

When you think about it, really think about it, would you take back any of those crises if you could? Would you take back the knowledge that you gained or the opportunities that your crises have brought you? I know that I wouldn’t.

So that is my challenge to you this week:

I challenge you to be thankful for your crises.

Agile

“If nothing ever changed, there would be no such things as butterflies.”

-Wendy Mass

Things are going to change.  Jobs will be gained and lost.  Loves will be embraced and released.  Businesses will thrive and dissolve.  Residences will be moved into and out of.  Health, finances, plans, will go this way and then that.

Change is the thing we aren’t naturally programmed for because the internal, stay-safe, survival mechanisms are geared to kick in when “different” shows up.

Let’s say you usually spend all day in an office.  Boom!  Layoff, and you’re now home.  Or you’ve been in a relationship for years.  Boom!  It breaks up.  Or, yes, even those who haven’t been in a relationship for years…Boom!  You’re in one!

We can go through the above scenarios for any aspect of life.  The question is: how to adapt most effectively.

The first hurdle is the commitment to actually adapt.  Many hold onto the old system, pattern, situation like a child attached at the hip to a parent on the first day of kindergarten.  We’ve probably all read “Who Moved My Cheese?” and yet a commitment to embrace and adapt to change isn’t always our first reaction.

The second element is to understand and embrace agile.  Agile is not only a descriptive of someone nimble and quick, but a term used in the world of software development where the focus is on quick adaptation based on short and regular reassessments of the situation and what is wanted and needed. But they get the product out NOW…not when it’s perfected.

There’s a lot of relevance to this concept for our own lives in The Back Forty.  Guess what?  Shift happens!  And it tends to take on greater seeming impact and significance as we move into the second half of life.

Taking on the agile way in which those in the first half – the 18, 20, 25yr olds – simply play and learn and play and learn some more can support us who have “been around the block a few times” loosen up, commit to adapt, and by God even start to have fun with it!

Giving up the expectation that anyone or anything will stay the same or that, in adapting, we’ll “get it right the first time” allows us the patience to stay on the playing field…with an emphasis on “play“.

Try a new approach? Conduct an experiment? Design a new context within which to hold it all?  Any of these can be forward-falling directions to take so as to flow with the shifting winds of life.  And falling forward fast is what will get us doing what we came here to do…not waiting until everything is stable.

Where can you bring playful and agile adaptation to changing plans, people and places in your Back Forty world today?

“Success today requires the agility and drive to constantly rethink, reinvigorate, react and reinvent.”

-Bill Gates

Reclaim Your Playful, Passionate, & Purposeful Future

So many people think that they don’t have control over their future once they find themselves in the midst of midlife. We want to change all of that.

The Back Forty teaches that:

“The only way you will ever be able to create your own radical future of play, passion, and purpose is by enabling yourself to have a say over how life will go from here on out.”

– Darrell Gurney, Co-Founder of The Back Forty

Take a moment to think about that. How many times have you caught yourself thinking that you are who you are or that you can’t change the path of your life?

The Back Forty teaches that you have a say over how your life will go. You can control your future, if you just take the time to invest in it. The second half of your life can be full of playfulness, passion, and purpose. You just have to decide that you want it to.

Unknown Faith-Face

“Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word ‘understanding.’”

– Werner Heisenberg

We often hear the terms “game face” and “poker face” as to the countenance we are to assume when moving into particular arenas and what we want to accomplish while on the field.

But what about when we are placed on playing fields we don’t understand and, therefore, don’t know what we want to accomplish…or even IF there is something to accomplish there?

I’m speaking of that great and mostly avoided turf called “the unknown”.

We avoid any opportunity to play those games like the plague!  Especially as we move into the latter, second-half years of life by when we have made LOTS of decisions as to who we are, how the world is, what’s really possible for us and our life, etc.

We tend to make permanent residence in the comfortable and known, because we’ve played (our safety-seeking voice says) “too much or too haphazardly in the past and got hurt, burned or, sure as hell, didn’t look good.”  Failure and its cousins – such as not looking good, making a mistake, appearing to not already “know” how to do something – become not only unwelcomed guests but wanted-poster criminals to be shot on site.

The Back Forty is founded on a philosophy that we (the Founders) and you have yet to do what we came here to do.  No matter what we may have achieved in the first half of life, we say our biggest hand and most purposeful game is yet to be played.

On that playing field, we suggest that Faith-Face is the countenance to assume while playing, and that looking for and diving into “the unknown”s of ourselves, our world and what’s possible for us is where the score really matters.

If you’re really playing a Back Forty Big Game as your future, you will want to explore who you are beyond the decisions you’ve made from life’s first half of research and development.  You’ll want to question the fixedness (can you say atrophy?) that comes from attitudes about people and the world that you arrived at from the game’s bumps and bruises.  And you’ll want to give your Self the opportunity to discover – from all of that first half R & D – your Formula of Unique Self Expression (FUSE) that only you could concoct given the particular life and times you’ve led.

We say that everything that has occurred, is occurring, or will occur in your life are the PERFECT and EXACT elements necessary to position you to be or do what you came here to be or do.

So, approaching the absolutely requisite unknown with Faith-Face forward is the quickest way to capitalize on your research.

Where can you embrace and faith-face the unknown in your life and times today?  For what reason is life EXACTLY the way it is right now to enable you to be and do what you came here to be and do?

Join us in this exciting exploration into the unknown of what lies in your own Back Forty.  It’s time to be surprised at what you’ve discovered about your Self.

“It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.”

– Alan Rickman

What Defines Middle Age & How to Empower Your Midlife Experience

The words “middle age” have been searched on Google over 8,400 times in the past 24 hours in the US. People are asking so many questions, but the overreaching question seems to be “what is middle age?”.

As simple as this question seems, it has so many additional meanings. When people ask what middle age is, they are also asking what ages are considered middle age and what the definition of middle age is. Ultimately, they want to know if they are middle aged.

Gasp!

Middle age, an age no one seems to want to be. Once you are middle aged you are no longer young, you are boring, you are no longer fun, you are old, and you are no longer cool. The stigmas can go on and on. But is that really true? I hear so many of my friends who are technically middle aged saying, “but I don’t feel middle aged!”

Well let’s start with the definition. According to the Oxford English Dictionary middle age is “The period after early adulthood and before old age, about 45 to 65”. Not terribly specific – so why is middle age met with so much dread?

There seems to be this preconceived notion that once you hit middle age, the best is all behind you. I disagree with this wholeheartedly. I believe that middle age has the potential to be the best years of your life. There is a concept made popular by The Back Forty that states that the first half of your life is just research and development and that the best is yet to come.

So take the first step towards making the second half of your life the best half and download the Top Ten Tips for Life’s Radical Second Half by clicking on the link below!

The Gift Inside My Fear

First days of being out on my own.

I knew within a week that I had made a mistake. I had left a position at the radio station where I worked, to take a position in their sales department. Lured by rumors of high sales commissions, I had rationalized the change by telling myself I could use some sales and business experience, to add to my growing body of creative experience as a voiceover artist and recording engineer.

I hated it. I hated the pressure of meeting quotas, and morning “rah-rah” sales meetings, but put on a good face for a year, when one morning I woke up and realized I couldn’t tolerate one more day. So I turned in my resignation and drove home in tears of relief and fear.

I was terrified. How would I support myself? I was 28 years old, unmarried, with a mortgage to pay and a cat to feed, and in desperation, I decided to try meditation as a defense against the persistent voices in my head that told me I had really screwed it up this time.

I got a book that suggested I lay down so my spine would be straight (the better for the energies to flow?) and empty my head of thoughts. Thoughts like, “Am I doing this right? What about now? Oh darn, there goes another thought.” I stuck with it, though, and a funny thing happened. I began to hear another quiet voice, one that encouraged me to relax, that everything would work out just fine. At first I was skeptical. Could I trust it? The feeling of reassurance was so consistent, however, that I thought, “Why not?” and listened closely.

That quiet voice inspired me to reach out to people I knew in the broadcast production industry, and the timing was magical. Within weeks I had a steady gig doing both on-camera work and training as a production assistant. Thirty years later, I have found success in the marketing, advertising, and film industries.

I needed that voice again a decade later, when I knew I needed to end my first marriage, but was afraid of being out on my own. How would I support myself? As before, I had known for a year that our relationship had gradually become disconnected, and my resentment and sadness had become a too-familiar companion. “Have I failed?” I wondered. I was afraid that leaving my husband would confirm my deepest fears about myself—that I was unlovable unless I was perfect.

I struggled for months, hoping a miracle would happen and we would again be happy. But nothing changed. One day, I woke up and my fear of what I would become if I stayed was greater than my fear of what I would face if I left. I was terrified, and yet, I knew this time to listen for the encouraging voice inside me. That voice guided me to find a therapist and work through my resentment, and that going to dinner alone wouldn’t kill me, but open me up to interesting conversations with new people. A small client expectedly expanded into a big one, and my fears of not being able to provide for myself gradually eased. I learned to count on a steady stream of abundance that I worked hard to create.

Happy at last!

With the passing of my years, I have come to realize that packed alongside every one of my fears is also the gift of courage that comes from trusting our own quiet voice inside: our inner wisdom. I was surprised the first time I shared the story of leaving the radio station for life unknown and someone exclaimed, “That was so brave!” It took me a while to own my courage, because it sure didn’t feel like it at the time. I own it, now, remembering the earlier times in my life where I was afraid and yet trusted that I could figure something out, even if I wasn’t sure if I could. That knowing has come in handy, when I was again afraid upon meeting the kind man who would become my second husband. I had one marriage that didn’t work out, could I try again? I ultimately decided that I could, and we have just celebrated our third wedding anniversary. The gift of my fears led me to be lovingly vigilant about doing the things that make our relationship happy, solid, and fulfilling to us both.  

I can say that being afraid at age 58 doesn’t feel any better than it did at age 28. There are always things in life that kick up fears like a car on a dusty road. But I now face the unknown with a little more curiosity and self-trust than I used to, and that makes all that earlier discomfort well worth it.

Tripresence

“The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”

– Thich Nhat Hanh

In our Back Forty, the second half/best half of life, it’s easy to make statements like “this is just the way I am”, “been there, done that” or “I see where this is going”…because, face it, we’ve been around the block a few times, yes?

However, when we come from all the infinite “wisdom” that we’ve amassed, it can actually restrict us because we rest on fixed and immovable opinions about ourselves, our world and what we perceive (from our also amassed and very logical interpretations) as possible and what’s not.

I recently began to explore my “mood of being” in the world as I play my Big Game Back Forty Future and noticed that, even as the pieces of my game puzzle are falling into place in wonderful ways, I was carrying around a resident mood of hard work and struggle.

It showed up like this: no matter that more and more manifestations of good were showing up with ease and grace according to my game, I was using other outside venues to be “frustrated”: traffic on the freeway, customer service issues with vendors, and various other so-minor-they’re-laughable problems.

A friend in my Back Forty Community suggested that I take the time to actually be “present” to all the good happening, to actually drive in peace as I focus on how good life is becoming, and to watch my tendency to bring old patterns into my life just because I’m used to them (e.g., venting when various issues arise with phone, internet, services, etc.).

I saw that I was in a new place, where life is really good and getting better and better. Yet, I hadn’t let go of old, perhaps subconscious, patterns I adopted when working to “get there.”

It had me realize that I’m probably not the only one who – coming into what can be “the best is yet to come” part of life – might be carrying forward certain undistinguished ways of being adopted from past situations and circumstances of life.

If we’re to really fulfill on this second half/best half of “what we came here to do”, then being able to play in the PRESENT is critical.

Perhaps “presence” has three aspects we can consider.

One is our actually being “present”, which means not only staying out of the past and future so as to be in this moment with the people we’re with right now…but also being present to our internal state of thoughts, feelings and emotions vs. projecting them.

Another is the “presence” we bring of our Self into any situation. The small s “self” rarely brings the same value that our big S “Self” affords.

Yet one more is the “Presence” which we allow to move through and guide us, whatever we consider that bigger-than-us intelligence to be. It’s actually one of the “7 Critical Embraces for a Radical Second Half”, the tag line of our upcoming book, “The Back Forty”, and the content of our INFUSE Program.

Your Big Game Back Forty Future will require all of YOU just as it will require all of me.  If we consider that the first half of life was just R&D, research and development, to only DISCOVER who we really are and what we came here to do, a renewed relationship with presence is required.

“Presence is more than just being there.”

– Malcolm Forbes

Have the Courage to Make Your Life an Adventure

Are you a victim or an adventurer?

Paulo Coelho couldn’t have said it better. If you view your life as something beyond your control then you will always be a victim of it. The first step of becoming an adventurer is to take control of your life. You are not stuck in your job, your relationship, your routine. You are an adventurer who can change your future.

You can create whichever future you desire. You just have to take the first step and decide that you can.

Never Waste the Opportunity of a GOOD Crisis

Happy Friday everyone!

Today I thought that I would just write a short post about the above quote.

“Never waste the opportunity of a good crisis.”

– Darrell Gurney

Crisis. It’s a word we avoid at all costs. After all, if we are having a crisis then we are in trouble. If we are having a crisis, things are bad.

But are they really? I was inspired by another quote earlier today:

“The midlife crisis is just those times when you’re not so into the things you were when you were younger.”

– Jay Kay

And it got me thinking. Why is a crisis always considered a bad thing? Why can’t we think of crises as opportunities instead of terrible misfortunes? After all, if midlife crises are caused by a change in your personality, that’s a good thing. That means that as you age you are still growing and becoming who you are truly meant to be.

What “crisis” in your life can you transform into an opportunity? Or looking back, what previous “crisis” turned out to be an amazing opportunity?

Special thanks to Encore Voyage for giving me the inspiration to write this!