You Need to See How Inspiring this 98-Year-Old Woman Is!

Do you ever have one of those days where you just feel old? You wake up and your back is aching, or your leg, or a random arm. And then you try to get out of bed and your joints are popping and you’re groaning and you’re tired. It’s days like these where I get up and say to myself,

“You are so old!”

Now don’t get me wrong, some days I feel young and full of energy, but other days…not so much. Other days I feel old and it causes me to make excuses. I can’t go to the gym because I hurt too much. I’m just too tired to go out tonight. The excuses go on and on.

Well, the other night I found a video posted on Facebook by NowThis and was inspired by it (and a bit ashamed of myself). I searched the internet for more information on this topic and I found the original video that NowThis had cut up for their 30-second news clip. If you are ready to realize just how young we all are and how our excuses should never get in the way of achieving greatness, watch this video created by Athleta below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBfslZKi99c]This is Tao Porchon-Lynch and she is the world’s oldest yoga teacher at the age of 98!

Tao is absolutely inspiring. At the beginning of this video she says,

“When you wake up every morning say, ‘This is going to be the best day of my life,’ and it will be.”

– Tao Porchon-Lynch

Meanwhile, I was here feeling old.

So, I challenge you (and myself) to be as strong and dedicated as Tao is.

Are you interested in learning a little more about Tao? Well, get ready to be inspired even more!

• She has been a yoga instructor for over 75 years and still teaches 4 days a week!

  

  Source: The Times

• She was a model during WWII  and even had the title “Best Legs in Europe”.
• When she moved to America after the war, she worked as an actress for MGM and even co-starred with Elizabeth Taylor in “The Last Time I Saw Paris”.
• She has a passion for ballroom tango and has won several hundred first-place competitive dance titles.
• She is the co-founder of the American Wine Society (as if I didn’t like her already)!
• She’s written two books (one about yoga and one about dance).

All in all, she is an amazing woman that we should all aspire to be more like!

So I’ll leave you in awe of Tao with this last quote:

“Don’t let age dictate to you what you can and cannot do.”

– Tao Porchon-Lynch

Sources: NowThis, Athleta, Wikipedia

You’ve Always Controlled Your Life – Even if You Failed to be Aware of it!

As we start out this new year, I want to bring you an important message. It’s easy to see things in our past (especially life-changing things) as something that we didn’t really have control over. After all, when something is out of your control it can’t be your fault.

But today I want you to think about your past differently. Take a moment to read the following quote:

You have always had a say. Even though sometimes it seems that you had no control over a situation. When you think of your past as being created from all of your decisions instead of being created by things out of your control – life suddenly becomes easier to manage.

You had a say over your past. You have a say over your present. And, most importantly, you will have a say over your future!

Happy New Year from The Back Forty!

However you are celebrating this night, all of us here at The Back Forty want to wish you a happy new year!

Take a moment to enjoy these inspirational thoughts to start out your new year right:

The Simple Reason to STOP Investing in Your Viewpoints

Today I want to share with you a concept that most people don’t take the time to realize, although, when you read it, you will know it is common sense.

Take a moment to read the below quote and I’ll meet you on the other side.

How many of you have gotten stuck in your viewpoints? I would assume that everyone has, at one point or another. After all, we’re human. It is part of our nature to get caught up in our own lives and assume that our views are the correct ones. But that’s not always the case, is it? For every aspect of our lives, there are different views of that aspect, and we are guaranteed to be wrong at least some of the time.

Which view can you try to see from a different perspective today? After all, like the quote says,  “we may have a lot invested in them”. Investing in a flawed perspective can hurt you in the long run. With that in mind, I challenge you to think about a viewpoint that you hold dear that might not be right. Can you let go your preconceived notions about it? Can you try to see it from a different perspective? I think you can and that you might be shocked at what a simple change in perspective can achieve.

Holidays Joy Research

“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”

Henri J. M. Nouwen

We all know how this time of year is “supposed to” be.

I’m not saying it isn’t.

Yet, what if we discovered what “joy” is for ourselves this year (and in the year to come) vs. whatever pictures or already-ingrained-perceptions of it that we have?

In life’s second half, we have an opportunity to move past the bustle of already-routined ways of experiencing life, and the holidays in particular.  The kids may be off to college now.  Our parents may no longer be with us.  We may be still single or still married, neither of which we would prefer.

In the Back Forty, rather than have our holiday practices focus on old, unthought patterns, we can invent new ones as well as new perceptions.

Very often, we miss what might be possible for us to experience because of what we think we should/could/ought-to-be experiencing.

For example, some may be experiencing this season without the loved one they had always by their side.  Others may be in the most challenging times of their lives, for one reason or another.

Those are very real experiences which – if we subscribe to the general pictures of how “happy” holidays are supposed to look – there could be a tendency to feel separate from this time of year…like an imposter or foreigner.

Time to invent!  Rather than buy into the feeling of separation from the season, where could an experience of “joy” be found even in the midst of that?

Regardless of your current state, as my holiday gift to you, here is a helpful pocket list of various thoughts on “joy” so that you might use this season as a research project as to what joy can be for wherever you are now.  What if you didn’t already know…and yet were about to discover?

Keep it close, share it with others…and explore your own Back Forty relationship to joy.

“Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.”

Marianne Williamson

“Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.”

Helen Keller

“Joy is untouched by circumstance.”

Unknown

“Joy comes to us in ordinary moments. We risk missing out when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.”

Brene Brown

“Joy is not the absence of suffering. It is the presence of God.”

Robert Schuller

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

“Consider it all joy.”

James 1:2

“Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within.”

Eckhart Tolle

“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive you will see it.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

“Remember that your natural state is joy.”

Wayne Dyer

“Life is hard. Choose joy anyway.”

Unknown

“A joy that’s shared is a joy made double.”

English Proverb

“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”

Mark Twain

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”

Rabindranath Tagore

“If you can’t find joy in the path you are on and what you are working toward now, how do you expect to find joy once you get there?”

Unknown

“When you choose joy you feel good. When you feel good, you do good and when you do good it reminds others of what joy feels like and it just might inspire them to do the same.”

Unknown

“We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try.”

Roger Ebert

“…Find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing. For to miss the joy is to miss all.”

Robert Louis Stevenson

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!

Bestful

“If you’re doing your best, you won’t have any time to worry about failure.”

– H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

We all truly want to do our best in our work, relationships, contributions and life.

And yet that inner voice is rarely satisfied, no matter how it turns out.

Every now and then, I’m so moved by quotes, that I am compelled to share them all.

So, I offer my “best” quotes to support you being as bestful as you can with yourself today.

“Do not look for approval except for the consciousness of doing your very best.”

-Andrew Carnegie

“Why worry?  If you’ve done the very best you can, worrying won’t make it any better.”

-Walt Disney

“Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later.”

-Og Mandino

“Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it’s business or baseball, or the theatre, or any field. If you don’t love what you’re doing and can’t give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You’ll be an old man before you know it.”

-Al Lopez

“Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you’re expecting a reward. Most people do the exact opposite: they only take action when they expect a reward, and they don’t enjoy the action. And that’s the reason why they don’t do their best.”

-Miguel Ruiz

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.”

-Maya Angelou

“My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.”

-Oprah Winfrey

Got bestful?

“It helps if you remember that everyone is doing their best from their level of consciousness.”

-Deepak Chopra