Month: February 2025

This stage of life is a time of transformation, new beginnings, and deeper self-discovery. It’s a stage where you’ve accumulated wisdom, experiences, and lessons, but also where you may be wondering, “What’s next for me?” As you embark on this next stage of life, exploring thought-provoking journaling prompts will help you reflect, gain perspective, and set intentions for a fulfilling future.

Journaling is a powerful tool to help you navigate life with clarity and purpose. There’s no right or wrong way to journal.

Just do it with authenticity.

What Is Journaling and How Do I Start?

Journaling is the practice of writing down thoughts, feelings, and reflections to gain clarity, process emotions, and foster personal growth.

Writing things down allows you to process emotions, clarify thoughts, and gain a deeper understanding of yourself.

Starting a journal doesn’t require fancy materials – just a notebook and a pen. Find a quiet space, set aside time regularly, and begin writing without overthinking.

Grab your favorite journal and take some time to explore the following questions with an open heart and mind.

Prompt 1: What Are My Greatest Strengths and How Have They Shaped My Journey?

It’s easy to overlook our strengths because they often feel like second nature.

But take a moment to reflect – what qualities, skills, or experiences have been most valuable in shaping your life?

Perhaps it’s resilience, kindness, creativity, or a sharp sense of humor. Maybe you have a knack for bringing people together, solving problems, or offering wisdom to those around you.

Why this matters: Acknowledging your strengths helps build confidence and reminds you of how much you’ve already accomplished. It also allows you to use these strengths in meaningful ways as you move forward.

Journaling Exercise: Write about a time when one of your strengths helped you overcome a challenge. How can you continue to use this strength to create a purposeful and joyful future?

Prompt 2: What Brings Me the Most Joy Right Now?

Joy doesn’t always come from grand gestures; it’s often found in the small, everyday moments.

Whether it’s sipping your morning coffee while watching the sunrise, spending time with loved ones, identifying what brings you joy can help you design a life that prioritizes these moments.

Why this matters: It’s more important than ever to focus on the things that truly make you happy. By recognizing what already brings you joy, you can intentionally create a life that includes more of these experiences.

Journaling Exercise: Make a list of things – big or small – that light you up. Then, reflect on how you can make more time for these joys in your daily routine.

Prompt 3: What Do I Want to Let Go Of?

Just as important as knowing what brings joy is understanding what no longer serves you.

This could be physical clutter, toxic relationships, old regrets, limiting beliefs, or even expectations that don’t align with your current values.

Letting go is an act of self-care and empowerment.

Why this matters: Carrying emotional or physical weight from the past can hold you back. Releasing negativity makes space for new opportunities, fresh perspectives, and more peace in your life.

Journaling Exercise: Identify three things – emotional or physical – that you are ready to let go of. Write about how holding onto them has affected you and how your life might improve once you release them.

Prompt 4: What Excites Me About the Future?

It’s natural to feel uncertain about the future, but shifting your mindset to curiosity and excitement can make all the difference.

Are there new hobbies you want to try?

Places you want to visit?

Personal projects you’d love to start?

The future is full of possibilities, and this is your time to explore them.

Why this matters: A sense of excitement about the future can increase motivation, boost emotional well-being, and provide a sense of purpose. It’s never too late to try something new or set fresh goals.

Journaling Exercise: List five things – big or small – that excite you about the future. If nothing immediately comes to mind, explore areas of curiosity that you’d like to learn more about.

Prompt 5: What Legacy Do I Want to Leave?

Legacy isn’t just about material possessions – it’s about the impact you leave on others.

What do you want to be remembered for?

How do you want your loved ones to reflect on the wisdom, love, and kindness you shared?

Why this matters: Thinking about legacy allows you to be intentional about how you show up in the world. It’s an opportunity to create meaningful memories, pass down stories, and invest in relationships that matter most.

Journaling Exercise: Write a letter to your future self or to a loved one about the legacy you hope to leave behind. What values do you want to pass down? What do you hope others will remember about you?

Prompt 6: How Can I Nurture My Relationships?

Relationships – whether with family, friends, or even yourself – play a crucial role in emotional well-being.

Reflecting on the quality of your connections and how you can strengthen them is an important part of personal growth.

Why this matters: Healthy relationships provide support, joy, and a sense of belonging. Taking time to nurture them can lead to deeper connections and lasting fulfillment.

Journaling Exercise: Write about a relationship that brings you happiness. How can you express more appreciation, reach out more often, or strengthen your bond? If there’s a relationship that needs mending, explore ways you can take the first step.

Final Thoughts

By taking time to journal, you’re giving yourself the gift of self-awareness and direction. There’s no right or wrong way to journal – just start writing and see where it takes you.

Whether you journal daily or just occasionally, the important thing is to embrace the process with curiosity and kindness toward yourself.

So, grab a pen, open your journal, and start writing your next chapter with confidence and excitement.

The best is yet to come!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What’s your journaling routine? Do you write early in the morning or late at night? When do you have the most inspiration to write down your thoughts, dreams and passions?

Inside their exceptionally private relationship.

Have you ever felt guilty saying ‘no’ to someone you care about? Or found yourself awake at night, worried about a friend’s problems? You’re not alone. While many of us understand the concept of boundaries in relationships, putting them into practice – especially with people we love – can feel uncomfortable or even scary.

Setting Boundaries Isn’t About Building Walls; It’s About Protecting Ourselves and Those We Care About

We can sail along without thinking about boundaries when relationships are going well. However, when a relationship hits a bump, we start feeling uncomfortable, exploited, or resentful, and we realize it is time to communicate our needs, limits, and expectations.

This topic became personal for me recently when I sought help from a therapist to address my own boundary challenges. What surprised me was discovering how many of my friends were wrestling with similar situations in their families and friendships. Our experiences inspired me to dig deeper and share what I’ve learned with our Sixty and Me community. In this blog, I offer a few guidelines to help ensure everyone feels respected, valued, and safe.

Often, we need to set boundaries in everyday situations that make our life difficult: a relative who continuously arrives two hours late to family gatherings or a friend who asks for advice, does not heed it, and comes back complaining. Consider these more challenging situations where boundaries become essential:

• Co-signing on a car loan, the person defaults, and your credit plummets.
• Lending money to someone who doesn’t pay it back and then asks for more.
• Receiving verbal abuse from a person with a mental health or substance abuse problem.

Whatever the case, we find ourselves giving beyond our means, feeling exploited, or, at the very least, made to feel uncomfortable. If we step back, we can see how fostering dependency actually enables the person to keep the pattern going.

Setting Boundaries Is Not Easy, But It Is Doable!

Of course, we want to be helpful and giving, but we need to ask ourselves if our giving is genuinely helping or creating dependency. A helpful book, Boundary Boss: The Essential Guide to Talk True, Be Seen and (Finally) Live Free by Terri Cole, provides practical suggestions. Cole explains that most of us, especially women, have been impacted by messages from childhood that cause us to worry that if we set boundaries, it would mean we are selfish and egotistical.

Yet, by not setting boundaries, we can develop co-dependent relationships with patterns that continuously repeat themselves. Sometimes, the very people with whom we need to set boundaries know how to pull on our heartstrings or manipulate our feelings. However, we can learn to decline a request without feeling guilty and maintain the relationship even after saying no. This might mean supporting someone’s efforts to solve their problems rather than trying to solve those problems for them.

Guidelines that Can Work in a Variety of Situations

Through my work with my therapist, I developed three straightforward guidelines that transformed my approach:

• First, identify realistic boundaries that reflect both your capabilities and limitations. This means being honest with yourself about what you can and cannot do, both emotionally and practically.
• Second, aim to maintain meaningful connections without compromising your integrity. Focus on fostering relationships that respect both parties’ needs and values. Sometimes, this requires temporarily or permanently ending the relationship.
• Third, offer help within your sphere of influence and in ways that create genuine positive change.

Following these guidelines has brought me a sense of inner peace. While I deeply feel compassion, I recognize that I cannot control another person. By setting healthy boundaries, we say yes to more balanced, authentic relationships, take care of ourselves, and live in harmony with our values. The path to establishing boundaries isn’t always smooth or easy, and there may be initial resistance or discomfort, but you and those you love and care about will be better for it.

Also read, What Are Boundaries and How Do We Set Them?

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you set boundaries with loved ones? What prompted those boundaries? How did you decide where your boundaries are?

Hopefully, the day you are reading this is a wonderful day! I think, for most of us, if we look back over our lives, there are many more good days than bad. However, if today is not such a good day, remember, tomorrow the page of life will turn.

Life is full of twists and turns, and by the time we reach our 60s, we become accustomed to the highs and lows. Although we would rather life was always good, it is often the lower points that we learn so much from, and make the good ones seem so much better.

It’s OK

Give yourself permission to feel sad, upset, angry. These are natural emotions we all experience from time to time. It’s ok. But don’t let them drag on indefinitely or allow yourself to wallow. These emotions sap your energy, can affect your sleep and appetite, and may lead to long term health problems. Look for solutions, reframe the situation, forgive the person who has hurt you and move forward.

I like to keep a little set of drawers in my mind. One for little things that worry or upset me, one for middle size things and a final one for the really big stuff in my life. Most of the time I keep them locked, but sometimes I open them and take a peek inside. Maybe I have a little cry or feel sad for a short while, but opening the drawer takes the pressure off, just the same as the lid on a pressure cooker. That way they don’t boil over.

History

I find going to historical places – when I have problems or something I want to think over – really cathartic. It reminds me of how short our time is on this earth and that, eventually, all things will pass. Wars, plagues, famines, floods, dictatorships, etc. eventually end, and even when we don’t think it is possible, life gets back to an even keel.

Think back over your own life history. Most of the things you worried about or made you sad passed by, and here you still are. Possibly a little bruised and battered but probably stronger, braver and wiser than before.

Look for Loveliness

Look for little nuggets of loveliness even if things are not as you want them to be. Take a walk in the fresh air, listen to some music, immerse yourself in nature, cook something special. Often, we are kind and supportive of others but forget to be kind and supportive of ourselves. We all need a little hug now and then, so remember – you are the person closest to you. Give yourself a hug.

Do whatever you can to uplift yourself. Put on your favourite dress, slap on some make-up, wear your favourite perfume. Surround yourself with friends or positive people, some of it will rub off on you. Ramp up the music and sing at the top of your voice, or dance around the kitchen. It really is possible to trick your brain into believing you are happy. Then your body releases endorphins, and you actually become happy.

Remember, It Will Pass

So, if today is not one of your happy days, remember it will be a new day tomorrow. I know not everything is resolved in one day, but, even on the really big stuff in our lives, each day makes us a little stronger. One step at a time is all you can take and, hopefully before long, you will be running again and who knows, you might go on to complete a marathon!

Also read, Put Your Glad Rags On .

Join the Conversation:

What has been your greatest page turn? How do you care for yourself when life gets tough? Have you learned to reframe situations?

In Part One, I highlighted three long books. Here, there is only one, but an important book, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. If you have a serious reader friend, take up this book together and discuss the sections. There is so much to learn about the author’s take on how women became who we are via evolution. Bohannon’s writing is colloquial, her footnotes are often funny, and we don’t have to spend even a minute going through the extensive bibliography.

I met a new, important author: W.G. Sebald. He writes about Germany, pre- and post-WWII. His books are short, with a different style of writing. Be adventurous, read an older book treasure.

The King at the Edge of the World by Arthur Phillips (Random House 2020)

This is a good book for lovers of historical fiction. Set at the end of Elizabeth I’s reign in England and Scotland (the Edge of the World), the protagonist is a doctor from the Ottoman Empire sent with a delegation to learn about the strange red-haired queen and her strange country. After six months, he is abandoned by his compatriots and left to fend for himself.

He does well because he is a skilled scientist. Eventually, the doctor becomes trusted enough to infiltrate the Court of the Scottish king, James VI (later James I of England) and must determine if James is a true Protestant or a closeted Catholic. Tangled webs are woven. Enjoyable.

The Hypocrite by Jo Hamya (Pantheon Books 2024)

There’s no one to root for in this father/daughter entanglement. Even the ex-wife/mother disparages both. I could not get engrossed in the plot.

There are two settings. First is the summer that the father and daughter spend in Sicily when she is a teenager serving as typist while her father dictates his latest novel. Hard work is made harder by her father’s lack of empathy.

Second is a small theater in New York where the daughter’s first play is premiering. Of course, it’s about her father and the summer, focusing most on the father’s long sex scenes in the bedroom adjoining the daughter’s. He always assumed the daughter was fast asleep. There is little love lost here; both may be hypocrites, but the father is an idiot.

Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon, (Knopf 2023)

Don’t be turned off by the 624-page count – 1/3 of that is notes, bibliography, and index. Eve is written like a scholarly text, but it is interesting, colloquial, and fun. OK, Bohannon drags on a bit at times, but you can skip ahead at your own risk. And don’t skip the footnotes. They are full of great bits of information and often funny.

This is a take at the presumed evolutionary biology of the female body – from the first chest-feeding rat-like critters to us. You learn lots about mammalian behavior, how we became upright, how women developed wide hips (thanks for that one), and the power of nurture.

I did not enjoy the end of the book which tried to rationalize why if women are the key to success of our species, we are so often mistreated (consciously and unconsciously) by the male of our species. I did learn from Dr. Bohannon’s distinction between sex and gender. This is a book you can easily read a section at a time, read another book, return to Eve. You will benefit from having a fellow reader with whom to discuss the material.

A History of the World in Twelve Shipwrecks by David Gibbins (St. Martin’s Press, 2024)

History wonks will enjoy this book. From the 2^nd millennium BCE to WWII, Gibbons shows how archeologically exploring shipwrecks expands the known history of the world at the time of the wreck. This is especially true regarding the extent of trade. We underestimated the ability of our ancestors to build ships capable of sailing to the most distant locations in search of metal, grain, wool, cotton, and slaves. There may be no written history, but you can’t deny the objects preserved below the water.

This book cries out for maps and there is not one. I read it with the atlas at my side. It needs more and better illustrations. Gibbins often spends several sentences describing a painting of a ship in such and such museum but does not show the painting. The pictures included are meagre in relation to the amount of information in the book. Still, I enjoyed the book and often found it difficult to put down. (I’m a history wonk.)

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald, (Random House 2001)

Not a book for the faint-hearted reader, but a stimulating read because of the manner of writing. Be sure to get the version with the forward by James Wood who describes how Sebald writes.

There are no chapters. There are seldom paragraphs. The writing is in the twice removed third person, “he said that he said …” of the narrator. It’s translated from German, but I didn’t feel that bore on the story or the style.

The story is about a survivor of Kindertransport at the beginning of WWII. This child, Jacques Austerlitz, is sent to Wales from Czechoslovakia, and his former life disappears. We meet Austerlitz through the retelling of his life story by a friend Austerlitz randomly meets.

Sprinkled throughout are amateur photographs (fictional) that illustrate a bit of something or a bit of nothing. They added to the lost, sad tone of the story. Though this sounds dreary, the writing and the book are fascinating. Give it a try.

The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald

Originally published in German in 1992 – English translation, New Directions Press, 1997

As melancholy as Austerlitz but written in a different style. There are four essays about family and acquaintances of the storyteller – all emigrants. They left Germany for England or the United States due to the pressure built up on German Jews. But there is no flaunting of Jewishness. These are our neighbors, our cousins, our friends. The stories are told simply. Illustrations are unposed snap shots taken in the 20s and 30s. A much easier read than Austerlitz and more engaging.

Let’s Talk Books:

What is your latest read? Do you prefer longer or shorter books? Do you read books from the same author? Which non-fiction genre is your favorite?