Month: May 2025

So cute!

Is she still a part of MomTok?

The widow’s peak deserves a rebrand.

Do you ever feel like your inner voice is not your best friend? Do you find that voice telling you that whatever you’re doing, you’re doing it wrong? My inner chatter is often telling me that I’m not doing ‘it’ right. It doesn’t matter what ‘it’ is – doing a task, helping someone to do something, even just trying to meditate.

I used to think that I was alone in this and that I was just flawed and hopeless. Then I started working with other women in workshops and discovered that almost all of us do this one way or another. It is painful to realize how many of us believe these negative voices in our heads.

And once we hit the age of about 55, many women claim that the voices get even louder; and a big new message is added: It’s too late, nothing will ever change.

When I look back, I realize that I received plenty of negative messages growing up and that I accepted the messages which told me I was doing something wrong, or that I as a person was flawed in some way. And these messages created new neural pathways which became embedded in my brain.

Some Background on Neural Pathways

A neural pathway is the way that information travels through the neurons, or nerve cells of the brain. We create new neural pathways every time we hear or experience something new. The more we experience something, the more embedded this pathway becomes, and unfortunately, a lot of us have some very negative messages firmly rooted in our brains.

Once those neural pathways are deeply embedded, changing them is not an easy task.

Is there a way to overcome the negative stories that we once heard and now continue to tell ourselves? Is there a way to shift those pathways so that they are less destructive?

Forming new behaviors and habits involves creating new neural pathways.

And we are never too old to do this! It just may take a bit more time.

Creative Positive Reframing

There is a practice I use which brings about changes in the neural pathways. I’ve coined it: Creative Positive Reframing. This practice can help take limiting beliefs and creatively transform them so they become supportive rather than destructive.

You can reframe your thoughts and create a new perspective. Try using these five steps:

Pay Attention

Pay attention to your thought process. You can tell if the thoughts are self-defeating and destructive if they negatively impact your body; for example, a knot in your stomach or a lump in your throat, clenched jaw or tight shoulders. Scan your body to check in. Observe/pay attention to what thoughts you want to change and why; what is the negative impact on your life?

Get the Negative Out

Nature abhors a vacuum. When you cannot get out of a negative thought spiral – write it out. Get it out of your head by emptying it out on paper. Think of it as an emotional enema! Write about all the negativity spiralling around in your head. Allow a stream of consciousness to flow and let it all come out. Write it out as it comes.

If you feel stuck, write about feeling stuck. If you can’t get moving, draw lines or Xs to get the energy moving, and then as negative thoughts come up, write them out. Keep writing until the thoughts stop coming. And then tear the paper up. Burn it. Stamp on it. Get rid of it!

Shift Your Focus

Interrupt your thoughts and patterns when the negative thoughts arise. Use your imagination – think about something positive, create a positive scenario. Create a specific plan and choose what to do instead of dwelling on the negative thoughts.

Negative self-talk can be replaced by focusing on something positive. Doctor Rick Hanson did several studies on ‘Negativity Bias’, the brain’s natural tendency to focus on the negative instead of the positive. He states:

Our brains are wired to take in the bad and ignore the good. That’s why it’s easier to ruminate over bad things than to bask in the pleasure of the good things in life. Because of the brain’s negativity bias, we’ve evolved to learn quickly from bad experiences, and slowly from good ones.

His studies show that the best way to shift that bias is to deliberately weave positive experiences into the fabric of your brain. And one of the easiest ways to do this is by focusing on something positive (a sunset, a beautiful flower, a caring person) and savor the moment. Spend time really focusing on your gratitude for the person, thing or event. (Watch for another article coming soon with more about the importance of gratitude and the brain, especially as we age.)

Think About the Ideal and Be Clear Why You Want It

In order to create new neural pathways and escape the negative spiral, it’s important to have a replacement to start thinking about. For example, if you are stuck in fear about money, and in a negative loop, start thinking about the flip side and create a picture of the ideal.

Describe your ideal financial situation, be as specific as possible. Have fun with this: let your imagination be your guide. You don’t need to write this out, just tell yourself the story. Picture yourself living the life of your dreams; actually feel how good it feels.

And then focus on the why. The why is very important. Why is this change in your life important? For example, allow yourself to really examine why having more money would make a difference in your life. What is the deepest reason you want this to manifest? Keep going deeper and deeper into why you want to achieve this until you feel like you have hit the heart of it. You will know it when you have hit it, there will be an emotional charge linked to it. Allow yourself to feel the depth of that emotion.

Be Creative

While you are focusing on shifting limiting beliefs into more positive and supportive beliefs, it is helpful to be creative in the process. An expression of creativity, in any form, can be helpful in shifting our mood and removing us from a negative spiral. Not only that, but repressed creativity can have the opposite effect, and can ultimately express itself in unhealthy ways, such as bad relationships, stress, neurotic or addictive behaviors.

Perhaps the most common manifestation of repressed creativity in women is depression, which, of course, only increases the negative downward spiral. But how can we be creative and how can we open ourselves up to our own creative potential?

There are so many ways we can get creative, and they all involve play: start journaling and play with words; get some oil pastels and play with color; go outside, garden, and play in the dirt; learn an instrument, dance, and play with music; cook and play with spices. There is no right or wrong way to be creative. The only important thing is to allow ourselves to connect with our own creativity.

Keep Reminding Yourself, You Are Never Too Old to Be Creative!

So, the next time you hear that inner voice telling you that you are doing it wrong or that it’s too late, try using these tools to creatively and positively reframe that message. The next time you find yourself falling into a negative spiral, use these tools to tackle those limiting beliefs, and transform them so that they are supportive rather than destructive.

And use that innate creativity to help transmute the whole experience!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What negative thoughts have circulated in your mind lately? How have you tried to eliminate them? Have you incorporated creativity techniques to gain control over your mind?

I am the mother of three adult children and six grandchildren. The nurturing part of me wants to protect my family from all evil, wrongdoing, and unsavory individuals. I want them to grow up in a peaceful world where all men and women are created equal, where music brings us together, and where everyone has a chance to self-actualize. This may be idealistic, but that’s the way I feel. My dreams for my grandkids are as lofty as they were for the three beautiful children I brought into the world.

The Experiences of a 50s Child

I was born in the 1950s and raised in New York in the midst of the hippie generation. I hung out in head shops in the suburbs of New York City, wore beaded necklaces, walked barefoot in the park, burned incense, and listened to music under black lights.

Because I had asthma, I never got into smoking marijuana, but I did protest the war and say good-bye to friends who went to fight in Vietnam. I fought for numerous causes and wore cut-off jeans that swept the dirty streets. Incidentally, I illegally wore the American flag slung like a scarf around my shoulders. As a writer, I filled my journal with musings about the Utopian world of my dreams.

The hippie generation was, in essence, an emotional rebellion against the mindless direction in which our world was headed. The ’60s counterculture asked questions and begged for answers and/or peace. There have been predictions that this intellectual rebellion will soon return because of political and racial oppression, and my sense is that it might emerge sooner than we think. Maybe we also need a resurfacing of counterculture music, sex, and verbiage.

New Urge for Activism

Recently, a childhood friend called to wish me a happy birthday. We shared memories of the peace and loving spirit of the 1960s. I felt the same stirrings in my blood – the same desire to join together and instill change, the pull to help bring a sense of peace to unsettling times. I felt the same compulsion to engage in some type of activism that I felt back then.

What I see and feel now are all reminders of the many similarities our current situation has to the hippie generation, which was a time of excess – racial violence, war, corporate greed, and a buildup of intolerance and dissatisfaction. Drugs were widely used then, of course, so the recent legalization of marijuana in many states is indicative of another parallel with the hippie generation. And, social media has encouraged people to speak up and voice their concerns – political and personal – which can easily lead to a revolution.

Make Love Not War

I want to be the messenger to my kids and grandchildren and inspire them to keep the faith, be compassionate, and promote the power of interconnectedness. As we used to say in the 1960s, “Make love not war.” This is not just a slogan; it’s vital to our collective well-being. The resurgence of the hippie revolution merely means that we need to reevaluate old thoughts and bring in fresh and poignant new ideas.

It might also be a good time to revisit books such as The Hippie Dictionary by John Bassett McClearly (2002), which is really a history book that casts a beautiful picture of those times. The author highlights some words in the book’s introduction, which I think still apply today, such as: “Hang in there, and keep on trucking.”

Most important, let’s keep in mind some of the words in that dictionary and the core of what this country was built upon: “A democracy is a society or form of government in which the population is given the opportunity to contribute to the decisions that govern them” (p. 126).

As an aside to this conversation, I also recently joined with a colleague and friend to create an anthology called, Women in A Golden State: California Poets at 60 and Beyond (Gunpowder Press, 2025). We wanted to celebrate women who honor the aging process with resilience, wisdom and transformation.

It’s a collection of 175 poets to celebrate the 175th birthday of the state of California. Us elders have so much to offer and it’s my hope that younger generations will avail themselves of all of it. Like McCleary said, it’s important that we make our opinions known through writing, in whatever is the genre of our choice.

In my book’s introduction, I share my poem which I think will resonate with the readers:

Create a Revolution

Incite change,
look for a patch
of difficulty amongst the glistening clouds,
hunt for an need unmet,
or a journey you want to take.
Stretch your arms to the sky’s glow,
find peace within yourself
offer a donut to the homeless,
tap into the closet never opened
and pull down old journals
written before wrinkled foreheads
and children expanding like
spiders crafting their webs.
Sink your teeth into good books
write the author to share your enthusiasm
for their warm words which make your heart twitch
and your muscles flex upon the seat
which holds the oldest bones
in your family all gone,
as you sit in your senior position
in the same way you were once the youngest
and most boisterous of the group.
Teach the world how life circles
and how change never really occurs
it just begs for a new sunlight.
Let yourself go
be the one who
they all talk about
when you are gone.

Have a beautiful day!

Let’s Have a Conversation:

What do you remember about your hippie years? Can you draw parallels with the world today? In what activities did you join back then, and do you see a resurgence of something similar?