{"id":1103,"date":"2012-10-17T07:00:32","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T11:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thequeenofmyself\/?p=1103"},"modified":"2012-10-07T00:17:22","modified_gmt":"2012-10-07T04:17:22","slug":"redefining-midlife-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Redefining Midlife Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is by my friend and colleague, <a href=\"www.joyofritual.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Barbara Bizou<\/a>. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Redefining Midlife Part 2<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The good news is that we can take this opportunity to look at life in a new and fresh way. This is a time to reinvent ourselves and make new choices based on what we truly want. It is time to take stock of our lives, reevaluate our dreams and goals as we make peace with what we haven\u2019t done and take steps towards our new expanded vision.<\/p>\n<p>The challenge is to look at the changing energy with anticipation. We can throw away the roles that do not serve and open to ones that contain more freedom to be ourselves. Time to set our house in balance.<\/p>\n<p>Many women find themselves moving into new careers or careers for the first time. Power may be an issue. For men and women who have worked in the world this may be a time for more fun \u2026freedom from the old roles we took on.<strong><em><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Real old age begins when one looks backward rather then forward, but we can look forward with joy and excitement to the years ahead and especially to the contributions we can make to the world.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><em><\/em><\/strong>Psychologically this is a new time of preparation for elder hood. Yet, there is a lot of time between midlife and elder hood and we need to discover language that speaks to this new era.<\/p>\n<p><strong>WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO WITH THE TIME YOU HAVE LEFT?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>1.Recommit yourself to speak in your own voice-unhampered by expectations or fear of what others will think.<\/p>\n<p>2.Support causes which show respect and reverence for the earth<\/p>\n<p>3.Be wild<\/p>\n<p>4.Take time for yourself &#8212; slow down &#8212; transitions take time.<\/p>\n<p>5.Cultivate a belief that it is safe to move forward<\/p>\n<p>6.Give up &#8220;being perfect&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>7.Develop a consistent spiritual practice<\/p>\n<p>8.Feel the intensity of your emotions &#8212; seek professional help if needed<\/p>\n<p>9.Decide to have a positive attitude<\/p>\n<p>10.Clean house of negative people<\/p>\n<p>11.Continue to learn new things<\/p>\n<p>12. Travel &#8212; expand your horizons<\/p>\n<p>13.Be physical &#8212; touch, hug, have sex<\/p>\n<p>14. Laugh, have fun<\/p>\n<p>15. Let yourself be supported by others in a healthy way<\/p>\n<p><strong>REMEMBER: AT THE END OF YOUR LIFE, YOU WILL ONLY REGRET THE THINGS YOU HAVE NEVER TRIED.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>*****<\/p>\n<p>Donna Henes is the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com\"><em>The Queen of My Self: Stepping into Sovereignty in Midlife<\/em>.<\/a> She offers counseling and upbeat, practical and ceremonial guidance for individual women and groups who want to enjoy the fruits of an enriching, influential, purposeful, passionate, and powerful maturity. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.donnahenes.net\/queen\/consult.shtml\">Consult the MIDLIFE MIDWIFE\u2122<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Queen welcomes questions concerning all issues of interest to women in their mature years. Send your inquiries to <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-admin\/thequeenofmyself@aol.com\">thequeenofmyself@aol.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; This article is by my friend and colleague, Barbara Bizou. \u00a0 &nbsp; Redefining Midlife Part 2 The good news is that we can take this opportunity to look at life in a new and fresh way. This is a time to reinvent ourselves and make new choices based on what we truly want. It&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":218,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,11],"tags":[397,482,13,188,200,466,706,178,707,708,18,57,45,60],"class_list":["post-1103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-midlife","category-wisdom","tag-change","tag-future","tag-holistic-living","tag-maturity","tag-midlife-crisis","tag-mortality","tag-old-age","tag-older-women","tag-passing-time","tag-planning","tag-queen","tag-self-approval","tag-time","tag-transformation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Redefining Midlife Part 2 - The Queen of My Self<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Redefining Midlife Part 2 - The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; This article is by my friend and colleague, Barbara Bizou. \u00a0 &nbsp; Redefining Midlife Part 2 The good news is that we can take this opportunity to look at life in a new and fresh way. This is a time to reinvent ourselves and make new choices based on what we truly want. It&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Queen of My Self\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-17T11:00:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-10-07T04:17:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Donna Henes\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Redefining Midlife Part 2 - The Queen of My Self","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Redefining Midlife Part 2 - The Queen of My Self","og_description":"&nbsp; This article is by my friend and colleague, Barbara Bizou. \u00a0 &nbsp; Redefining Midlife Part 2 The good news is that we can take this opportunity to look at life in a new and fresh way. This is a time to reinvent ourselves and make new choices based on what we truly want. It&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html","og_site_name":"The Queen of My Self","article_published_time":"2012-10-17T11:00:32+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-10-07T04:17:22+00:00","author":"Donna Henes","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html","name":"Redefining Midlife Part 2 - The Queen of My Self","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-10-17T11:00:32+00:00","dateModified":"2012-10-07T04:17:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/2012\/10\/redefining-midlife-part-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Redefining Midlife Part 2"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/","name":"The Queen of My Self","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Donna Henes","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/544e888db264d2e1c6e32fd2f80c031a","name":"Donna Henes","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/0c6\/0c683cd428803d35cf10fae85f8125ebx96.jpg","caption":"Donna Henes"},"description":"Donna Henes is an internationally renowned urban shaman, ritual expert, award-winning author, popular speaker and workshop leader whose joyful celebrations of celestial events have introduced ancient traditional rituals and contemporary ceremonies to millions of people in more than 100 cities since 1972. She has published four books, a CD, an acclaimed Ezine and writes for The Huffington Post and UPI Religion and Spirituality Forum. Mama Donna, as she is affectionately called, maintains a ceremonial center, spirit shop, ritual practice and consultancy where she works with individuals, groups, institutions, municipalities and corporations to create meaningful ceremonies for every imaginable occasion.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.thequeenofmyself.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/author\/dhenes"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/218"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1105,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103\/revisions\/1105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thequeenofmyself\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}