Jane Wharam on......

50, not out

Today's sort of crept up on me and the full impact of it didn't register until I was thinking about my birthday, tomorrow, which led me to the realisation that today is the last day of my 40s - a whole decade about to be snuffed out and gone forever.  Now that's a sobering thought.  I can dimly remember my 40th birthday - better than I can what I did last year, actually, but that's another story altogether - as being a rather glamorous affair in a French chateau with a load of friends bussed in for a surprise party.  I don't remember there being a wake for my 30s; if anything, I was impatient to 'grow up' and the loss of a decade seemed inconsequential compared with what I was going to gain.  Of course, using that wonderful medium of hindsight, on the whole my 40s have been rather 'difficult' years and one would think that I'd be glad to be shot of them but I have to say that I have a certain fondness for many of the events that have happened over the last 10 years, painful though many of them have been.  It's certainly been a decade of learning and personal growth and I start my 50s with more of a feeling of joy and excitement than I have experienced since my teens. What do I know now that I haven't accepted until recently?

that literally anything is possible, given enough conviction and an open mind; 

that the old saying 'be careful what you wish for in case you get it' is true; 

that you have to love yourself to truly love another;

that, however faint it might be, there is almost always a silver lining, even in the darkest cloud;

that true friends must be held and nurtured and that to have good friends one must be one;

that fear is the only thing that can possibly hold me back

So, how have I spent today?  It's been 'normal', whatever that is, apart from the cake, balloons and champagne, which have been most welcome.  I've done domestic stuff, worked, communicated, gone to choir practice and generally lived my life, which is how it should be.  Time is relative and the man-made parameters we put on our lives shouldn't affect how we live them.  All I have tried to do is to live in every moment of every action, taking as much pleasure in stacking the dishwasher as reading the funny e-mails.  I hope that, as far as possible, I have just been.  

May the next 10 years be as inspiring, interesting and generally fun. Bring 50 on, I'm ready for my close up!

Regret

What do I most regret?  Not much really, as not doing and saying what I have said and done in my life would make me a different person from the one I am today and I quite like me, if I’m honest.   I didn't for a long time but that was mainly because I was a slave to my emotions and had a big account at the various shops of 'Guilt', 'Low Self Esteem' and 'Judgement'.  Now I would say that regret actually harms a person’s development.  As Bill Withers once said of tears – and tears and regret are somehow inextricably linked in my mind  – ‘wasted water’s all that is and it don’t make no flowers grow.’ 

I agree with him.  Time spent in regretting could be spent more profitably in seeing what I did that I now consider to be ill-considered and working out how I can put it right or change the way I react to things.  How can I cultivate more patience and faith in myself and stop making the knee jerk reaction?  How do I stop my finger hovering on my own self-destruct button or develop the ability to tune into my intuition more?  

Furthermore, what good does regret do?  If I hadn’t been so pig-headed (and frankly scared!) at 18 I could have gone to a 'better' University but then I wouldn’t have met my husband and had my wonderful son.  If I’d started the job as a copywriter instead of going into recruitment, would I now have an ulcer and two divorces instead of none and one?  It’s all a waste of time thinking about it because I can’t change it anyway.  Once something is in the past, all we can do is learn, accept and move on.  Regrets anchor us in the past and it’s the present that counts.

‘If only’ have got to be two of the saddest words in the English language and that’s what you say when you regret.  ‘if only I had walked away from that relationship at the start' or ‘'if only I'd taken that job in America.’  My tip is, don’t say ‘if only’, act on your intuition at the time.  Go for it or don’t go for it but don’t regret your actions.  

Which doesn't mean, of course,that we should never be sorry.  I feel sorrow for everyone I've hurt through my words or actions.  I'm sorry when I realise that I've been thoughtless, arrogant or lost my temper but what I try to do then is atone. Some crimes are so big that that can be very difficult but there's usually some way to pay, at least in part, for what we've done.  The trick then is to forgive oneself and move on. 

All experience is useful, even if what you’re going through feels like Hell and there’s usually some silver lining in most clouds, however black they look.  Believe me, I've been to my own personal version of the ante-chambers and it's no picnic but, from the fire can rise the phoenix.

I go on at length ('what, you?' I hear you cry) about this subject in my book 'Emotional Intelligence; Journey to the Centre of Yourself'  (available to pre-order from Amazon, ISBN no. 978-1-84694-187-0)  I could publish some extracts here if you're interested.  I cover regret, attitude to adversity, authenticity and the like - nothing heavy!  And, laced throughout the book is humour,as, without being able to see the funny side of a situation, even blackly, means that you haven't really explored every aspect of what you've done that you regret and that means that you're still enslaved by it.  And we don't want that.

Inscrutability

'Inscrutability' - 'that which cannot be penetrated, wholly mysterious'

I was talking to a friend the other day about a mutual acquaintance and he described this person as inscrutable.  I'm assuming - I know, I know! - that the word has the same root as 'scrying', which, in the same dictionary is described as 'practise crystal gazing'.   And that's very apt, as to fathom the inner workings of an inscrutable person would take a crystal ball and a whole battalion of expert readers. Inscrutability is the very nemesis of communication, which you'll know from the previous post, is my hot topic du jour.

How do you get to know or understand someone who doesn't show what s/he's thinking or feeling?  Or, worse still, someone who deliberately sets up communication booby traps designed to put you off the scent of the true person?  An inscrutable person doesn't display the usual telling signals that we all show to one another in our non-verbal communication.  We can even communicate outside the words in our writing; we all have a style, which is often indicative of our personality and it's quite hard to disguise it, particularly in something as personal as a blog. And we all have acquaintances or colleagues who 'shout' in their writing - i.e. they write in caps and, worse still, often in 'aggressive' colours like red or orange.  Then there are the serial exclamation artists!  But enough about me....

An inscrutable person doesn't display any of these traits, unless they're using them deliberately to confuse.  The exterior of the inscrutable is bland and featureless, no nose to nervously rub, no hair to toss or pupils to widen with desire; no reds, caps or exclamation marks, just short, featureless words delivered in a smooth, featureless fashion.  And words alone aren't communication, not in its truest sense.  Words can be weasel while other forms of communication are intrinsically more honest.  Touch is one of the truest forms.  How much comfort does a hug give when a hug is all you need?

Most importantly, true communication springs from emotion; the desire to communicate, to help, to defuse, to clarify. Expert communicators use their instinct, not their thoughts.  An inscrutable person can't be instinctive, as that might give away what they're feeling.  Inscrutability is the suppression of emotion and that can rarely be a good thing.

Communication

This is a first for me.  If you think about it, we start off at a communication table for one and then, for a long time, only a few extra places are added - parents, extended family, friends and professionals - until, as we get older, more and more people are invited to join us; these are our own friends, teachers, partners, children and colleagues.  For some of us, that's as far as it will ever go until we go full circle and mostly dine alone again.  

However, for some of us, the table gets bigger and bigger until a much larger space is needed.  We communicate across oceans and time zones with telephones, Skype and e-mail; but, generally, still with people whom we have invited or who ask us to join them.  Then, for a relative few, it's the big one - talking to strangers - and that's where I am now. This is my first blog, my first glimpse of a world outside my knowledge and my first 'undressing' in public.  I feel apprehensive, vulnerable, excited and exhilarated.  I'm here to publicize my first book - there had to be a good reason to get me to such a point - and so I'm poised, thoughts and feelings whizzing around in my head, watching and waiting to see which one settles for long enough to pin it down and examine it in public.  This time anyone who chances on these pages can read what I have to say, look at my internal construction and, horror of horrors, disagree with me - in open forum.  Maybe I'm not ready for this after all....

But wait, I can't just get my coat and leave.  That would make me look even more foolish that I feel already. It's only a blog.  If I shut my eyes I don't even have to see you all out there.  I can pretend that I'm at my favourite table for two and am in deep conversation with a close friend, who knows me, supports me and cares about me.  So, that's who you will become, my trusted friend who only wants to be constructive when we debate.  Hello, friend, lovely to meet you!

Anyway, back to communication.  Maybe I ought to tell you the title of the book so that you can read it when it comes out in July. It's called 'Emotional Intelligence; Journey To The Centre Of Yourself', published by O-Books, available at all good book stores and via the internet!  And it's really all about communication.  It's about how we communicate with ourselves and others and how we can use that communication to live authentic, balanced and happy lives.  It was written at a time when I hadn't been friends with myself for a very long time but then started to get to know myself again and quite liked the person I suspected I could be.  I found the writing of it cathartic, energizing and intriguing and I hope, that when you read it, you will get something out of it too.  I wrote it in the hope that no-one reading it would ever feel as low as I did at that time and that its audience would become happier and more balanced in their approach to life than I had been.  I also wrote it because I had this burning need to communicate with more people than I'd had in my sphere for some time - large though that was by 'normal' standards.  I think that most writers would agree that writing is a compulsion. It's almost like feeling sick in the night; you wake up and get the first inklings that there's something going on internally, then, gradually, you focus on the possible cause of the disturbance until you know that the only possible way you're ever going to get any peace is to throw up.  Once you do, the feeling is incredibly good.  Maybe not the most pleasant analogy in the world, but you get my drift.  Now I've opened the sluice gates, so to speak, there'll be no stopping me....