Month: July 2025

Style Stealers

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Originally posted at: Emily Simpson’s Dark Denim Skinny Flare Jeans

I wrote a book as a way to explore the map of reinvention. Do you want to explore new directions? Is it scary? Of course. But why not try? Dream, examine patterns, be open to magic. Your anxiety can be tamed. As you lean into this exciting path, you can and will succeed. Why not feel new energy and aliveness?

I wrote the book and then I did what I wrote. A shaman in Ecuador said: “This is a good book. Have people pick a number between 2 and 209 (number of pages in the book) and that is their question to explore.” I often do this with people and get magical results.

Reinvent Now

I know you might not think you can reinvent your life, but you can if you say so. I wrote Creating Magic in Midlife: 101 Questions and Answers to help others but I actually did what I wrote about. From 2006 until now I have lived reinvented magic life.

After I left Santa Barbara as a successful psychotherapist specializing in trauma, the magic followed me. After 10 years in South America, I moved to Oaxaca, Mexico, then during the Covid-19 pandemic left for Dublin, Ireland, where I started a new chapter, a Master’s in creative writing.

People often say I am an inspiration. I want to share with you what helped me.

Doing Things That Felt Right, One Step at a Time

First, I went to a beautiful city of 14 million vibrant people. I lived for two years in Buenos Aires as an expat, learned to dance tango (it takes a lifetime, they say) and started to learn Spanish (Como estas? and donde estas? with my New York accent). I started to feel like living each day could be fun. Yes, the life of an expat is very challenging, and I will share more about that in the future. A few of us English speakers started a writing group that I attended weekly which offered support and friends.

After Buenos Aires, I moved to Cuenca, Ecuador, and immersed in the indigenous culture leaning into natural healing and how to live a sustainable lifestyle. Ecuadorians actually fix things instead of always buying new. They work hard and live their lives in harmony with nature. What a concept! Later on, I realized I was detoxing from consumerism and privilege. And I was becoming much happier than I had ever been.

In Dublin, I lived in a tiny house where I could walk everywhere (gave up the car culture for environmental and because I love to walk). My neighbours were friendly, and the city was full of culture. As a writer, I call it the candy store for writers.

Two Suggestions

Dream Your Future

You can use the question I use with clients: If you could have anything you want, what would your life look like? This means anything regardless of money, age, or any realities of your current life. It’s only a vision. You don’t need to do anything about it.

Start Looking for the People, Places and Things That Give You Energy

This is meant to be research. Again, you don’t need to do anything about what you are learning. My position is that motivation comes after taking seriously where we feel most alive.

In future posts, I will share more from my book, more stories and tips on how to explore more of your own dreams and also make less of my mistakes.

Take a few actions and feel your energy rise. Follow me here and please comment so we can have intriguing conversations!

Also read, Reinventing Yourself After 60 Starts with These 4 Questions.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

How does reinvention sound to you? Scary or exciting? If you have started your own reinvention, what does it look like? Is it how you envisioned it, or does it look different now?

Parenting is hard.

Parenting while carrying your own childhood wounds? Even harder.

Many of us brought our pasts into motherhood without even realizing it. We didn’t set out to repeat old patterns or project our pain – but sometimes, that’s exactly what happened.

Maybe you grew up in a home where emotions were ignored, anger was explosive, or affection was conditional. Maybe you were left to fend for yourself too early. Or maybe your parents did their best, but they simply didn’t have the tools.

And when it was your turn to raise children, you carried all of that with you – whether you meant to or not.

We don’t parent in a vacuum. We parent from the stories we’ve lived, the fears we haven’t unpacked, and the healing we’re still working through.

When I Became a Parent

I was completely clueless. I am the youngest of eight children and by the time I came around, my parents were completely DONE. I was mostly raised by my older siblings. My mother’s menopausal mental health issues inflicted significant wounding on me. All I knew, becoming a parent, was that I would raise my kids differently. But I had no idea what that meant.

I voraciously read parenting books from the library. I can remember thinking, “I don’t even know how to PLAY with kids, much less raise them.” I read books about playing with children and planned fun activities and outings.

In the fire of parenting, I truly learned to love. Patience increased, creativity and confidence grew. I loved being a mom!

I also made plenty of mistakes. Some were out of ignorance of what was the right thing to do. Some were my own painful reactions to my own past. Parenting is a mixture of sheer love and terror. We fumble through the days, sometimes unaware of missteps we may be making.

Often, we only see the missteps in retrospect.

I look back at my clumsy parenting with great love, but some incidents stand out in horror. I made mistakes. I’m human.

So What Do You Do When You Realize You Didn’t Always Get It Right?

First, take a breath. That realization doesn’t make you a bad mom. It makes you human.

Second, tell the truth – but tell it with compassion.

You were doing your best, even if your best was shaped by unhealed pain. That doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for everything. But it does mean you get to hold both accountability and self-forgiveness at the same time.

Here’s what forgiveness looks like now:

• It’s naming what didn’t work without judging who you were.
• It’s making peace with the past, so it doesn’t define your future.
• It’s allowing yourself to move forward with love – even if not everything gets fixed.

If you’re in a season of rebuilding with your adult children, you might choose to say, “I know I didn’t always show up the way I wanted to. Some of that had nothing to do with you, and everything to do with what I hadn’t dealt with.”

That kind of honesty opens the door to healing.

And if they’re not ready to walk through that door with you?

You can still walk through it for yourself.

Because the second act of your life deserves freedom, not regret. Forgive the version of you that didn’t yet know what you know now.

You’re not perfect. But you’re still growing. And that matters more than you think.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Can you identify ways in which you parented from your own pain? Are you ready to let them go?

Jerry Garcia named his bluegrass group “Old and in the Way” as a self-deprecating joke. Well, before you react, don’t forget his first group was the “Grateful Dead.”

Old and in the way, that’s what I heard them say

They used to heed the words he said, but that was yesterday

Gold will turn to gray, and youth will fade away

They’ll never care about you, call you old and in the way

Feeling Powerless?

The joke was on us because that song was a best-selling bluegrass album. Lately, I hear more friends bemoaning the state of our world today and feeling powerless, which got me thinking about the power we have, whether we see ourselves as leaders or followers.

At a recent talk about leadership I attended, someone pointed out that followers are important, too, because the role of a follower is also significant and occurs more frequently for most of us. I would like to suggest that each of us experiences times when we are followers and other times when we are empowered as leaders – whether as parents, friends, in our professions, or in the complex interactions within our communities, our country, and the world.

Leadership and Following

My life has been marked by both leadership and following. When I was a school principal in Oakland with 1,400 students, I thought I had a great deal of power; yet, I was subject to the influence of parents, teachers, several labor unions, and the superintendent.

Later, when I was a superintendent in a San Jose district, I had five bosses – the School Board. As a parent, and now with my five-year-old grandson, I’m never sure of who is in charge.

What Makes Up a Good Leader?

Many qualities that make up a good leader can also be applied to our sense of agency in moments when we have power, and when we need to speak up when we witness something bad happening to someone else. Stephen Covey says, “There is a deep, innate, almost inexpressible yearning within each one of us to find our voice in life.”

Have you ever felt that you need to say something or do something?

British religious scholar Rabbi Jonathan Sacks identified a set of principles for leadership. I share them below and add my thoughts about leading and following next to them:

Principle 1: Leadership Begins with Taking Responsibility

Each of us is free to be accountable and responsible. Together, we can change the world. We are never powerless; we can speak up and stand up for what we believe.

Principle 2: No One Can Lead Alone

We each have different qualities that can contribute to making the world a better place. It takes leaders and followers and can never be the result of just one person. As leaders, we need to surround ourselves with thoughtful people who contribute their ideas and energy. As followers, we must select wise, compassionate leaders with a moral compass who care about others.

Principle 3: Leadership Is About the Future

We must have a vision of the future and communicate it effectively. We need to be fully present and not procrastinate, while also looking ahead to prepare for what’s coming.

Principle 4: Leaders Learn

We all can grow and change as we learn from our successes and mistakes. We will grow wiser and more intelligent by learning from our missteps and errors.

Principle 5: Leadership Means Believing in the People

As leaders and followers, we can only make a difference if we trust and believe in others as well as ourselves.

Principle 6: Leadership Involves a Sense of Timing and Pace

I sincerely believe the words of the song, “Turn, Turn, Turn,” that come from the Bible, “to everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose.”

Principle 7: Leadership Is Stressful and Emotionally Demanding

Well, no doubt about that.

My friend and mentor, Edmundo Norte, taught me:

“When we find ourselves feeling powerless, our role is to speak up, resist injustice, and demand accountability from those with power and influence. And when we are in a position of influence, our role is to listen, learn, collaborate, and empower others, using our standing to effect change.”

Let’s Have a Conversation:

When have you found yourself in the roles of leader and follower? What have you learned about being a leader and a follower?

Style Stealers

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Originally posted at: Jennifer Pedranti’s Dark Denim Jumpsuit