Hi there
Hope you are doing well. I’m settling into my new life in my new house, which I have to say is a massive upgrade! My office now looks out over trees where 4 blue tits are flapping about and the view is a symphony of yellow and green leaves and sky. I have a terrace outside – a boon when the sun shines.
It’s strange to see our sofas and paintings and STUFF in a new situation but – particularly with my little one ‘home’ for the first time (she’s on a reading week from Uni) – it feels happy and cosy. I have learnt that home really is where we make it.
Thanks so much for all your messages and concern about my move, it has been a big thing, but I am now so glad that I did it!
Change: Difficult but thrilling
As someone who writes and talks about change a lot, it’s been fascinating to be in the crucible of it again and remember how it feels: gut-wrenching but also exciting. That glimmer of newness and possibility in all the turmoil. And now the sweetness of the chaos over and the pleasure of the new environment.
It’s a lesson not to allow our fear at the churn and the unknown to stop us taking the plunge. There is gold in the uncertainty, the possibility of a renewal and something better.
Our younger selves: Listen up!
At the London NOON Circle this week we discussed what advice we would give our younger selves – and also what our younger selves would say to us.
We had a bumper turnout: 24 of us! It was too many for us to go round in one big Circle, so we split up (as we often do now). In six groups of 4 everyone shared their story, and then we fed back into the bigger group.
(The feedback was that these smaller groups work well – it’s easier for everyone to have some back-and-forth around the topic as well as get to know each other better.)
So what did we learn?
‘It gets better’
There was a lot of telling our younger selves to hang in there, that it would get better. I can relate to that. I have been much happier as an adult.
As a child I felt responsible for everything and everyone – I have 6 younger siblings and they all call me Nana. My parents divorced when I was 5 and after that, we (me, my brother, age 3, and sister, age 1) shuttled every week between 2 households, our stuff in 3 little green holdalls. I was the anxious little “adult”.
I learnt to be more carefree as a teenager. Growing up in central London, I went to nightclubs when I was 13. It was heady just to be allowed in, to dance, to see all these incredible dressed-up people and be part of it all. My friends and I were interviewed by the late Paula Yates for a series called Too Much Too Young…we had a lot of fun.
Remembering our younger self’s dreams
In the Circle we talked about what we wanted to do as young women: One Queenager said she had dreamed of being a poet, a ballet dancer and an artist. But her parents said: “You can’t do any of those things.”
Now at 60, she teaches yoga, writes and publishes her poetic meditations, and spends “much of my time being creative, making things, drawing, being in my body – I find now that everything that I wanted to do as a young woman still brings me joy. I am so glad that now, in my own way, I do all of those things I wanted to do as a child….”
I write in my book Much More to Come (just published in paperback – a perfect Christmas gift for a fellow Queenager!) about what saved me how when I had my big life crash was returning to the things I loved as a child. For me, that’s swimming and reading. Books and water are my happy places. (These reach a wonderful crescendo in combination: reading in a hot bath. Bliss.)
What’s your equivalent? (Email me on eleanor@noon.org.uk or leave a comment on this Instagram post.)
Do you know what makes you happy now?
If you’re unsure what makes you happy right now, don’t worry. Give it time to percolate. I come across so many Queenagers who have forgotten what reliably brings them joy. Too often we are busy holding up the sky for everyone else – we’re out of touch with what we need.
Also important to remember: We don’t have to be good at what makes us happy, we just have to enjoy doing it. That’s one of the great things about midlife: We can slough off that sense of needing to be an expert or not being good enough – and just have a go because it feels good.
And when we do that, it’s amazing what we truffle up.
Examples of new paths and passions in midlife
There was a strong sense in the group of the joy in just digging into the things we like; being playful and not taking ourselves too seriously.
One of the ladies in my group on Tuesday said that when she retired she wasn’t sure what to do next. So she just started trying new things. She discovered she loved art history and has done several courses, including having just taken herself off to Venice to see her favourite paintings in the flesh.
Another had taken up ceramics and gone on a residential course. She recounted a delightful story: Some of other women on the course kept talking about ‘Audrey’ and how they loved working with Audrey. Who was this Audrey? Why haven’t I met her? she kept wondering – until they told her with benevolent laughter that Audrey is the type of porcelain they were using.
New activities bring us new friends
We know that we can lose friends in midlife; maybe we’ve grown apart, or they were friends for a reason or a season. Maybe some old friends are no longer with us. We also heard a lot about how a shared passion makes it easy to find new friends of all ages and background.
One Queenager told us how she loves going to the Frontline Club in Paddington: She isn’t a journalist but she loves hanging out with foreign journalists, war correspondents and photographers. “They just seem so alive. We’ve bonded over our shared interest in current affairs,” she said.
New friends can see us in our new guise, even help us become a new version of ourselves.
Right now we can actually express and do the things our younger selves wanted but never allowed ourselves to do. We can be impulsive and fulfil our dreams. “As a Queenager, I can do all the creative things I didn’t do when I was responsible and successful,” said another woman. Yes to that!
What wisdom can we dish out now?
“I want to tell my younger self it will be ok, but you have to MAKE it ok. Don’t rely on anyone else to make it ok for you. Trust your gut instinct, particularly with people,” exhorted one Queenager. We talked about that wise injunction from Maya Angelou: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”
Looking back, many of us thought about all that energy that had gone into certain projects and wondered why we were doing it. Because we loved the job? Because it was expected? Or because we were trying to prove ourselves?
Many of the women shared a sense that what had driven them was family expectation or parental approval. We wanted to give our younger selves a hug and tell them to be a bit gentler on themselves. Now in midlife, we are learning to talk to ourselves as we would to someone we love. We can tackle our inner critic. I believe that switching off that inner tyrant is a key part of the midlife journey.
What brings you joy?
Another key part of our advice to ourselves: Try new things that you thought weren’t for you.
I am a terrible artist (truly) but I LOVED our day in Margate painting with Margo and playing with colour.
And I see how far I have come when I go to yoga. Now, I am no yogi – no pretzel shapes for me. But I sit at the front, right by the teacher and don’t compare myself to anyone else. I do it as well as I can and try to be fully present. And as I do it more and talk to myself more kindly, I improve. Not only in how I feel emotionally, but also in my body and how I do yoga. When my mind is calm and focussed, I balance better.
I reckon my younger self would be pretty impressed by what I can do now (as a kid I hated yoga. It made my legs ache and I felt fat and self-conscious). Now I love the sense of internal spaciousness and peace it brings me. It’s a reminder that we shouldn’t expect ourselves to be experts when we begin something new.
I’m sure our younger selves would say to us proudly: “You are enough! Relax! Have some fun. You’ve got this.” And our older self can smile and, on a good day, say: “Yes, I am. Yes, I will. Yes, I do!”
What I love most about the Circles, NOON and all of you and what we are co-creating together is this opportunity to pause and reframe. We can take up things that we never thought were “us”. I never thought I would enjoy meditating, or feel a spiritual connection with nature, or start to crave time in silence…. My younger self would be aghast at much of that, but also, I am sure, proud.
Sit with your younger self today
So take a bit of time maybe this afternoon to think about what your younger self would tell you now: How proud she would be, or sympathetic, or kind, or how she would give you a hug and say how well you’ve done or marvel at all you’ve accomplished or gotten through. If things are a bit tricky for you at the moment, she would probably say: Hang in there, it’s going to be ok.
Join the conversations
Would you like a bit of inspiration and support on following your dreams? Come to a NOON Circle!
If you’ve been reading this email for a while but haven’t yet joined NOON or attended a Circle, isn’t it time you stopped denying yourself new friends, lively chat and loads of laughter? 😃
We’re also publishing details of Circles further in advance so you can plan and put them in your calendar. Check out all the ones you can book RIGHT NOW.
Learn more about our brilliant Circle hosts and find out more about them on our new Hosts page (we’re adding more all the time, all over the country).
And there are still a few tickets left for our Christmas party in London on December 9th. There will food, drink and good cheer galore! Hope to see lots of you there.
And don’t miss our FREE webinar about the impact of the budget on us Queenagers and our finances. We’re running it with our partners BKL on December 3rd at 12.30pm – sign up here.
Eleanor
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