Gaining Perspective

One of our bigger tasks during midlife is to gain perspective on where we’ve been, where we want to go next and how we’re going to get there. It involves major work on ourselves to identify and shed redundant roles and behaviors, and then find and establish new ones that work better for us. This takes time to achieve, along with the willingness to make the needed adjustments. At a time of so much mental, physical and spiritual change, altering the ways we behave as well can seem like a daunting task!

As we discard old roles, we have to decide how we will now deal with things in a way that is compatible with our new self. It takes time and energy to not react in the old, familiar ways, to think the process through and respond in a manner that is in keeping with who we are now, and what we really want to achieve.

For me as I’ve shed redundant roles from earlier in life, I’ve definitely had to learn new ways of behaving. One of the hardest has been to learn how to make my opinion heard appropriately. I grew up seeing angry exchanges used as a means of communication, so unconsciously adopted the same behavior when I felt cornered or trapped. Inevitably this seldom had the desired effect, however it took many years to see that I was contributing to my problem of not being heard by my method of delivery.

It is from the perspective of seeing behaviors as inconsistent with who I am now, that I can decide how I want to behave in the future. I have learned to think through what I would like the result of an interaction to be, and what I can do to make it more likely to happen – and then have a calm, quiet, conversation while the situation is manageable. While I’ve known all this in theory for years, it has taken time to be able to rely on the new behaviors to be my ‘go to ‘ responses – change can be difficult even when it makes sense! In many ways shedding old roles, especially those still hanging around from childhood, has allowed me to finally grow up.

I’m sure every one has had their own moment of realization when they notice that they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot with a behavior or in a certain situation. The good news is that this is the right time to make life easier for ourselves, so use perspective to make the most of it!

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