Don’t get me wrong I have read all the discussion and understand the logic in learning to accept the “new” me. But, it ain’t working. Lately I have been thinking about Botox but I keep asking myself if doing it is just a desperate attempt in avoiding the facts here.

On another site the other day someone asked if Madonna was wrong to try to look younger. My response was her choice was her choice which I believe. I went on to say rather self righteously that envy was not attractive. Mea Culpa.

I am conflicted. What do the rest of you Vibrant Beauties think, or do, about this transition (or not)?

I came across a free kindle book… short, sweet… good info… enough to recommend it… Midlife Crisis Survival Guide

From Paula Ellen:

annmmc is right. Food has become entertainment in this country, and as such, we disrespect it. Remember who you are, and what *you* need.

How to change the way we eat:

1. Eat mindfully. Stop doing two or three things at once. Just eat. Pay attention to how it tastes, the texture, really *enjoy* it. Be thankful for it.

2. Wait until you’re hungry. I found myself eating because I was bored, or because I had a taste for something. Waiting until you are actually hungry is something you have to get used to, but it works.

3. Drink a lot of water. When you think you are hungry, you are actually thirsty. Before you eat anything, take a big glass of water, and drink water during meals. Keep a water bottle at your desk, full, where you can see it all day to remind you to drink more. This will lower your bill in restaurants too, because the price of soft drinks has gotten ridiculous. They don’t even put the prices in the menu anymore, then charge almost $3 for a glass. Forget that!

4. Replace one bad habit a week with a healthier choice. What do you choose for breakfast, for break, for lunch? Make a conscious effort each week to focus on changing just one habit, to see if you can make it stick.

5. Stay busy. Again, I eat when bored, so I find that if I stay busy, I don’t think about eating so much.

6. Use the smaller plate trick to make it look like you have more food than you do, and the eating more slowly trick, so you don’t eat a lot. I have always been a chow hound, so this one I have to work on. It helps though, to put your food or fork down between bites, take a drink of water, and wait a moment before continuing.

7. At restaurants, consider the “children’s meal.” You don’t have to eat everything that’s offered. I have found a children’s meal at most places is just the right amount of food, and am not ashamed to ask if it’s all right for me to order it.

[This comment was originally posted in this conversation. ~ Eds.]

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There is a borderland state called hypnagogia. It is a place of transition; a space that is rapt with images, symbols and words that captivate the mind as they move you from wakefulness to sleep (referred to as hypnagogic) and, on the other side of the sleep cycle, give rise to wakefulness(known as hypnopompic).

Hypnagogia whispers to you as it gradually, bit by bit, lets go of or barely brushes up against your conscious mind.  It is a process much like sunset and sunrise, which darken and brighten respectively, not in a flash, but slowly and mysteriously over the span of minutes.

I am particularly interested in my hypnopompic waking thoughts, and I have trained my mind to become increasingly aware of them.

These hypnopompic thoughts that drift, hang, and effortlessly glide by, contrast radically from those of ordinary wakefulness.  The sense of self has ‘loosened,’ allowing for an openness, a sensitivity, and a gracefulness to ‘be.’

In this place of ‘being,’ there is only one voice.  The observer, the part that is aware of the thoughts is simply aware.  There is no counter-thought, no judgment of the thought, no critical thinking.  The ‘loosened’ voice is free to give rise to flexible thoughts; thoughts that bend and curve and yield to a heightened state of suggestibility.

My hypnopompic thoughts are sometimes bright and enthusiastic, bursting with energy and sweet talk; coaxing me to rise and shine, to greet the day with joy and happiness.

Sometimes dark, shadowy thoughts arise, threatening to cast gloom on the day as they drape themselves heavy on my chest; a blanket of sadness across my body.

I find that I am equally curious and welcoming to both sides of the ‘hypnopompic divide.’  Truly.

When happy thoughts arise, I do my best to amplify and enhance the joyful energy.  I pack the zip, zing and dynamism into my jet pack, ala George and Jane Jetson.  I borrow a phrase from my father’s beloved nautical dictionary, as well as his voice.  Dad roars, “Full steam ahead.”  I obey, powering my way upward into the day.

The ‘negative’ feelings, the upset, the sadness, dare I say – the deeply depressive thoughts – are explored in a more gingerly fashion.  They have a depth to them, a richness, a bittersweet quality.  I respect and honor these thoughts.  They are my humanness.  They are my guides and my teachers, and ultimately, I am to rise above them.  Once inwardly explored and expressed, my Lucy Lawless – my Xena the Warrior Princess emerges, and again, the upward spiral is in motion, and again, I power my way into the day.

This morning, the dark side solidly rolled into view.  Thoughts of my mother and her current state of mind, which fluctuates wildly from phone call to phone call, from visit to visit, surfaced.   Sometimes we are optimistic; sometimes we are terrified.  Sometimes grateful to be alive; sometimes we want to die.

Our yesterday’s conversation rivaled Mozart’s Requiem, one of the best and saddest pieces of music ever written.  Mom peppered our talk, which primarily focused on the difficulty of her transition with the following phrases:

“People live too long.”

“It would be better for everyone if I left now.”

“Maybe the cough will turn into pneumonia.”

“Perhaps I’ll toss myself off the balcony.”

One might say that she is lucky; and that I am lucky by extension.  A walker is better than a wheelchair; the assisted living setting, with all its challenges, is far better than a nursing home.  Amen to that sister, I am right there with you.

Nevertheless, a person is entitled to feel their feelings, and without question, getting not just old but ancient is an extraordinarily difficult journey.

Mom is 95.5 years old, and her passage – like everyone else’s – is a journey of losses.  Sometimes one loss is on the heels of another.  Sometimes the losses are mercifully spaced out, allowing us time to catch our collective breath, readying ourselves for the next ‘happening.’

Mom has experienced a great many losses.  The death of her son (5 years ago), the death of her husband (10 years ago), her home of 31 years gone in one swift fall (the recent move to assisted living); the full use of her body also gone in one swift ‘fall’ – literally (now needing a walker for the shortest of trips – even from the bed to the bathroom).  And her mind, which was the sharpest of them all – sharper than yours or mine – is showing its wear; a bit tattered around the edges.

And so, in my hypnopompic state, where my thoughts and feelings have a bow to them, where I am in a heightened state of suggestibility, I simply note that the blanket of sadness is indeed heavy on my heart, in fact, on much of my body; from my eyes, to my throat, to my chest … on downward.

I am increasingly aware of the words, phrases and thoughts that are floating through my mind. “…W…e…” passes through. (As above, “we are sad.”)  In that moment, I create a space between my mother and myself; a space filled with compassion and loving-kindness, but nevertheless a space.  I am – and – She is.

No, I do not need to feel her feelings for her, even if this was the unspoken childhood role that was assigned to me.  The roots may run deep, but I am no longer a child, and I make a choice – I let go.   As I wonder, “to whom do these thoughts belong?”

Many of the thoughts that float before me belong to my mother. I tentatively hand them back to her, further creating a space for me to explore my thoughts and my feelings.

Miraculously, as I further relax my body and my mind, the thoughts and the feelings that accompany them begin to dissipate. The blanket of sadness lifts. And I am once again coaxing myself out of bed with sweet-talk of the day to come.

The weather gods predict an unseasonably warm and sunny day.  The corner fruit vendor has a fresh shipment of grapes and cherries arriving early this morning.  And later in the day, after we visit my mother, Peter and I will venture downtown to see The Descendants, a tear-jerker promises the New York Times.

Thanks to the good folks who spend their time discovering obscure illnesses that nobody should ever know about, I now know I have DEVELOPMENTAL TOPOGRAPHICAL DISORIENTATION or, it’s more roll-off-the-tongue name, TOPOGRAPHAGNOSIA. This dysfunction is manifested by a belief that when one is asleep, crews of people are out in Washington, DC, changing the location of all the traffic circles and the directions and names of most of the streets.

Topographagnosia is a congenital disorder of the hippocampus. The hippocampus is part the brain.  It affects memory, organization, and one’s orientation in space.  I have had this dysfunction since approximately birth. It’s a miracle I made it down the birth canal. To my knowledge, that was the last time I went in the correct direction to get anywhere.

Most people afflicted don’t concern themselves with their hippocampus anyway, because it’s tough enough to figure out where things are that we can see. We try not to clutter our brains up trying to understand where things are that we can’t see. But, the affliction can severely affect an individual’s daily life. This most often occurs when some unnamed individual, like me for example, is attempting to find the ladies room in a restaurant, and wanders around in circles and invariably either ends up in the kitchen or in a broom closet. In fact, I may have inadvertently run into my hippocampus once, when trying to find the ladies room, but I can’t be sure.

Other enjoyable aspects of this disorder occur on vacations, when that same unnamed individual is totally enjoying the breathtaking scenery, until another unnamed person, usually consisting of a Now Husband, will say something like, “Wow, that is the most phenomenal-looking bird I have ever seen! Can you believe those colors?” or “Wasn’t that amazing how fast those wild horses ran by? I didn’t realize there were any around here!” or “Those mountains look almost like someone dipped their tips in glitter!” And the person afflicted with Topograpagnosia has, instead, been having a swell time simply staring at rocks and trash alongside the road.

DTD also impairs a person’s ability to remember names. I, personally, have tried everything I can think of to remember names. I concentrate really hard. I repeat the person’s name back to them. I ask them to spell their name. I try associating their name with something else. Nothing works, and the association thing is especially worthless. I’ll remember only the mnemonic device and end up calling people things like “Zippy” or “Phlegm.”

Since I’ve already lived with Topographagnosia for quite some time now, and since I know it will never go away, the only thing that’s left is the hope that someday, I will be introduced to someone whose actual name is either Zippy or Phlegm, and then I’ll probably have a pretty good shot at remembering it.

Vibrant Nation readers know that’s a big “no kidding.” Hormonal night sweats are caused by hot flashes. Unfortunately, hot flashes tend to be worse at night, when your body temperature normally drops as you’r sleeping, according to Vibrant Nation health expert Dr. Holly Thacker, author of Recognizing and Treating Menopause Symptoms: A 50+ woman’s guide to managing hot flashes, weight gain, mood swings, depression, vaginal dryness, night sweats and other menopause symptoms.

“This small decrease is a big deal if you lack estrogen,” Thacker said. “As your body temperature drops slightly, your brain says, ‘Time to turn on the heat—it’s getting cold in here.’ The result is a hot flash, which becomes a night sweat when your ‘cooling system’ triggers the sweat glands into action. When you wake up hot and then wet, you eventually get cold.”

While you can’t stop hot flashes, you can reduce the hot flashes causes. It just so happens that many of the same techniques used to treat insomnia for other factors can also help stop hot flashes, including:

• Avoid alcohol near bedtime.
• Avoid caffeine within three to four hours of bedtime, or even earlier if you’re sensitive to its effects.
• Avoid nicotine, since it’s a stimulant.
• Exercise, although not too close to bedtime
• Keep your bedroom on the cooler side. Warm rooms inhibit most people’s sleep, but can also trigger hot flashes.

If hormonal night sweats are keeping you up, you might also try these menopause-specific suggestions:

• Wear socks to bed. When your extremities are warm, your body temperature may be more stable.
• Use cotton sheets.
• Use a fan or air conditioner.
• Sleep with a Chillow. A Chillow (chill + Pillow) is a cooler pillow.  Some Vibrant Nation members swear by them.
• Use a cooling lotion, which Vibrant Nation members say can stop a hot flash

Hot flashes aren’t the only cause of insomnia. Between 30 and 40 percent of adults report having some symptoms of insomnia within a given year and 10-15 percent say they have chronic insomnia, according to the National Center for Sleep Disorders Research at the National Institutes of Health.

To find out more ways to get a good night’s sleep despite hormonal night sweets, check out Vibrant Nation’s free special report, 5 Proven Remedies to Reduce Hot Flashes During Menopause.