Midlife Mastery Journal

After the Fall: Recovering Your Initiative

2009-10-18T08:00:00-04:00

What happens when you run headlong into one of life's 'ten terrible transitions'? You probably know what they are — I've written about them before: 1) Death of a loved one, 2) Making a life commitment, 3) Breaking a life commitment, 4) Changing careers, 5) Going into business, 6) Retirement, 7) Bankruptcy, 8) Serious illness or accident, 9) Spiritual awakening (including addiction recovery), and 10) Embracing sexual identity (as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered). All of them (even the 'good' ones) have the same effect on your experience of day-to-day living: it stops! Everything comes to a screeching halt until the transition is completed. You've fallen. So, what happens then?

Everyone goes through the same four sets of experiences, according to his or her temperament and the nature of the transition. I call them "the four 'R's": realization, reaction, reflection and result. At each experience, you encounter a different set of emotions, all of which have to be dealt with before you can get on with the life you've chosen for yourself. Let's look at each one.

First, you realize what is happening, and that causes you to feel as if your life has been disrupted. In point of fact, it has. Circumstances have conspired to distract you from your life goals to such a degree that you can no longer ignore it. It demands your attention, and won't be put off until later. It must be addressed now before you're free to do anything else. To the extent that you resent this intrusion into your plans, you may even feel defeated or victimized. "Why," you may ask yourself, "is this happening to me, and why now?"

Next, you have an emotional reaction to the realization that your will has been thwarted. You will probably feel frustrated and disappointed. To the extent that you fought to avoid having to face the transition that confronts you, you may feel exhausted from your struggle and/or overwhelmed by an experience that you simply can't avoid, no matter how hard you try. Furthermore, to the extent that others are aware of your struggle, you may also feel humiliated. These are the most common reactions to coming to accept that the unthinkable is, in fact, happening.

While the last set of emotions came from your reaction to your realization of your situation, the next set of emotions arise in you when you reflect on your performance in the face of this transition. This is the perfect opportunity for whatever self-doubt you harbor to come forward and to take center stage. In these situations, it's common to experience your emotions reflecting back to you feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, or deficiency. You may start thinking that maybe you're defective, because you couldn't avoid or at least manage the situation better. In extreme cases, you may feel like a 'nobody,' a 'zero.'

As a direct result of this cascade of emotions, from realization to reaction to reflection, you will most likely arrive at a predictable emotional result: you'll feel a deep sense of helplessness, a sense of being stuck in an impossible situation, and at a loss as to what you need to do next. Depending on whether you're an extroverted or introverted person, you'll very likely either strike out randomly at people, places and things in your surroundings (which may or may not have anything to do with the transition situation itself), or you'll hunker down in frightened inaction. Some others, when faced with this situation, may even take off running in a vain attempt at escape. And, there we have our predictable (but very ineffective) result: the infamous fight, flight, or freeze responses.

Right now, I'm spending much of my spare time building a comprehensive but affordable program that people in transition can use not only to go beyond these debilitating emotions, but also to provide a means by which they can actually use these 'negative' experiences as stepping stones to give them a sense of direction, energy, pride, satisfaction, purpose, confidence and accomplishment beyond anything that they've experienced before. Sages, spiritual leaders and we coaches aren't exaggerating when we insist that challenges are only opportunities in disguise. Properly managed, difficult transitions can be the most fertile ground from which incredible growth and progress can develop. I've seen it in my own life, and I've seen it in hundreds of people whom I have counseled and coached. With the proper guidance, I'll bet I'll see it in you, too!

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

Living at Statistical Ground Zero

2009-10-11T08:00:00-04:00

"Life," they say "begins at 40." In so many ways, 'they' got it right for a change! Regardless of how we might be feeling about it inside, by age 40, the world is ready to take us seriously. We have achieved a degree of success, and everyone around us is prepared to take us seriously. By 40, we're firmly ensconced in 'adulthood' and we've had at least some opportunity to wield a power and authority that we only dreamed of when we were adolescents. I have to say 'regardless of how we might feel' because secretly every adult retains some of that sense of the 'little child in the big world' and the 'terrified teen' inside an often very competent adult exterior. If you haven't figured it out by now, let me assure you that it takes a long time to 'finally, really, truly grow up.'

Whether or not you're ready for it, midlife also marks your shift from the sidelines to mid-field in the game of life. If you were very fortunate in your early years, you may have been spared from having to deal with what I'm choosing to call the "ten terrible transitions." Few people are given the burden of having to endure all ten; however, most people have to endure most of them, and, the longer you live, the higher the statistical probability that it's going to be your turn to face each them. Of the ten terrible transitions, nine of them generally happen at midlife. The longer you've been able to avoid having to endure them, the closer they're coming to you — at least the ones that you're destined to have to endure. Let's look at them.

The ten terrible transitions are: 1) death of a loved one, 2) becoming committed, 3) breaking up, 4) changing careers, 5) going into business, 6) retirement, 7) bankruptcy, 8) serious illness or accident, 9) spiritual awakening, and 10) embracing sexual identity (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered). Of the ten transitions that are going to happen to you, chances are that only the last one (embracing your sexual identity) is statistically more likely to occur before midlife. For all the rest, the longer you live, the higher the probability arises that you're going to be experiencing some of them soon. The reason why I call these ten the 'terrible transitions' (although not all of them are tragic) has to do with a concept that physicists call 'catastrophe theory.' In physics, at least, a catastrophe isn't necessarily catastrophic. Let me explain.

Catastrophe theory explains how the universe goes through series of permanent transitions. Think of a log floating on the water behind a large dam. Imagine a flood causing the water to back up behind the dam, rising slowly. In physical theory, the log is said to be gaining potential energy. The water level may rise and fall, and the log may gain and lose its potential energy. Then the water overflows, carrying the log with it over the top of the dam. Once the log has crossed the top of the dam and fallen down the other side, it has lost it's potential energy permanently. In physics, that's a catastrophic change. The log cannot return to a higher level of potential energy: it has passed the point of no return.

Each of the ten terrible transitions are serious because they represent a catastrophic change in a person's life to the extent that life will never be able to return to 'normal' ever afterward. These are truly life-altering events. Remember what Tony sings in West Side Story: "I just met a girl named Maria; and suddenly that name will never mean the same to me"? No wonder midlife can be awe-inspiring. When you enter fully into midlife, you have come to ground zero for your share of the ten terrible transitions. Should you be afraid? The answer to that question depends on your physical, mental, emotional and physical strength. Regardless of whether your experience brings you sadness or joy (or a combination of the two), you can be certain that it will bring you stress. At the same time, the skill with which you handle the stresses of these transitions will say a good deal about your level of personal maturity.

One great truth about the ten terrible transitions: no one can go through them for you. You are (or will be) ultimately on your own. However much those around you are affected by what you're going through, you're the one who will be forever changed by each event. Can't you change your mind with at least some of these events? Can't you close your business or end your relationship, for example? Yes you can . . . but only by enduring yet another of the terrible transitions, for example: career change or breaking up. In each case, circumstances force you to call upon your inner strength (sometimes to what seems like the breaking point), and in each case life demands that you reevaluate where you are on your life path and where you're headed. Mind you, where you're headed is not always the same as where you want to go!

Does becoming aware of being at statistical ground zero change things for you? Does it raise your awareness of how critical it is to be able to master the tools of the midlife transition now? It's impossible for any of us to see into the future and to be able to predict which of the ten terrible transitions will be our personal lot. One thing I know for certain: each one of them is an opportunity that life gives us to grow. Whether or not we accept and embrace that opportunity is entirely up to us. We can take comfort in this, at least: that even if we fail to take advantage of these catastrophic growth opportunities that live presents us with, so long as we're alive, somewhere along the line, we'll get another chance to get it right. My hope and prayer for you is that you do the necessary midlife work now, so that when the time comes for you to face one of these life-altering events, you will be ready and you will not fail.

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

Your Cultural Obstacle to Growing Up

2009-10-04T08:00:00-04:00

So you think you're all grown up, do you? You might want to think again! If you haven't navigated your way successfully through the midlife transition to full (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual) maturity, then you're not 'all grown up' . . . yet. There's no shame in growing, mind you. As a matter of fact, that's what life is all about: becoming. The only time that someone can truthfully say that you've 'made it' is after you're dead. Then, there's no more becoming to be done. You'll be finished, in every sense of that term. If you're not 'all grown up' yet, don't fret. Wear it as a badge of honor that, as the saying goes, "God isn't finished with me yet."

Whether you're 15 or 50, you've got some growing to do. Yet most people who are reading these words are unaware that there exists a huge obstacle to your growth that you're just taking for granted. In fact, if you're like most people, you probably think that this major obstacle to growth belongs there: it seems like that's the way things are supposed to be. What could it be that's slowing or stopping your progress, and yet you just accept it as 'normal'? It's your culture. You can think of your culture as the lens through which you view yourself and the world. Or, as sociologist Geert Hofstede describes it, it's the mental 'operating system' that underlies the functioning of your reason and your judgment. Culture consists, in fact, of the unconscious assumptions that you make about how life in this world ought to function. The sad truth is that, for most people, culture stands in your way, however: so long as you don't confront your cultural assumptions, you're powerless to grow beyond them.

Every group is a system, and every system has a specific culture (an 'operating system' of assumptions about how that system works). Whether or not you're aware of it, you live in a world of cultural diversity. Since you belong to a number of different groups simultaneously, the various cultures of those groups overlap one another — more or less peacefully — like overlapping circles, with you as the common element in all of them. Your groups (and cultures) include your family, your neighborhood, your community, your state, your nation, your religion, your ethnicity, your age group, your workplace, the organizations that you belong to, and on and on. When these overlap peacefully, it's because they share certain cultural points of view.

Some people call these points of view 'cultural values,' but not all of them are genuine 'values' at all. They may not be truly conducive to your personal, social, ethical or spiritual growth. In fact, very often, cultural viewpoints can be decidedly unethical. Ironically, when you're in a certain culture, even unethical standards seem 'right' because you share them with all the other members of your group. Bigotry is one perspective of that a number of cultural groups share and, to those groups, bigotry seems not only logical, but also virtuous. Just because an assumption has been adopted as a cultural norm, doesn't make it right.

Obviously, bigotry in all its forms (religious, ethnic, political, racial, sexual, etc.) can generally be recognized as what it is (by those not in its clutches). You may think that's an extreme example. There are cultural norms that are not so obvious, but which, over time, can also prove to be crippling. In our own Western culture, one crippling cultural assumption that can actually block your growth is an exaggerated individualism. I invite you to think of individualism not as something obviously valuable, but as one extreme of a scale that stretches from extreme individuation (isolation) all the way to communitarianism. At one end, only the individual exists and has importance; groups are just loose associations of individuals defined by and for their members. At the other extreme, only the group exists, and each individual's purpose and role is defined by and for membership in the group. These are cultural extremes, although they exist at opposite ends of one cultural scale. You can quickly see that 'individualism' describes Western (our) culture; while 'communitarianism' applies to a greater or lesser degree to many Asian cultures. Which one is right? Neither! However, if you aren't aware of where you (and your culture) stand on the scale, you'll remain powerless over it.

When scientifically measured, it's fascinating to realize that, in this aspect, our Western culture lacks moderation. It exists at the extreme end of 'individuation' scale. There are no major cultures on earth outside our own where individuality holds such high importance. That's one reason, according to Lalei Gutierrez and her husband, Phil Belzunce (recent guests on my internet radio program), that the United States holds such attraction for so many Asian people: it's the one place where they can go to discover who they really, truly are, apart from the cultural groups that have so strongly defined them. Lalei mentioned that in her native Philippines, 'you' do not exist. There is no 'you' apart from your family. In the West, Filipinos and Filipinas come to the United States hungry to discover their identity as individuals. In doing so, they do not leave their Filipino culture behind, rather they're seeking to broaden and enhance it.

For us who are native to this culture, the story (and the issue) presents itself quite differently. Everything we honor and value celebrates our individuality. Here are some specific characteristics of our individualistic culture (adapted from Geert Hofstede, Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind) You look after yourself and your immediate (nuclear) family only. You derive your sense of 'self' from your own capabilities and achievements. From infancy, you think of 'I' rather than 'we'. Doing wrong leads to feelings of guilt and loss of self-respect, rather than shame and loss of face. Education teaches you how to learn rather than how to do. Your employment is a contract, rather than a social bond. You're hired and promoted according to rules and based on your skills, rather than on what social group you belong to. What you do is more important than whom you do it with. For us, these things seem self-evident. For most Asians, those statements are counter-intuitive. At both extremes of the scale, we find serious issues.

Over the past century, our culture has moved farther and farther away from group-centeredness (your family, your neighborhood, your religious and ethnic peers) and more toward isolationism. One casualty in this cultural drift has been the Western family. It is true that the family is in trouble, but not for the reasons that many people may think. Those who are most combative in the current 'culture wars' are certainly fighting for their own cultural interpretation of life in these United States, but keep in mind that there are, according to Hofstede, five cultural scales. Although individualization may be the cause of the breakdown of the nuclear family, it's the one cultural value all of us in the West can agree on, so we don't recognize its causal influence and look to other cultural difference as the cause. The more we encourage individualism, the more we further the breakdown of the social group (including the family), often in the name of saving it! What effect does an exaggerated individualism have on your personal growth?

For one thing, it deprives you of context. The meaning that we give to things and events in our lives derives primarily from the context in which we live, the same way words derive their meanings in contrast to the meanings of similar words. When we're deprived of context, we humans tend to give things and events random and arbitrary meanings. Like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass, words tend to mean exactly what we want them to mean, nothing more and nothing less. Deprived of context, we tend to ascribe cause where no cause exists, and blame where it doesn't belong, like believing that lack of closeness in the family derives from lack of prayer in public schools rather than from that attitude that doing things together as a family (like meal times) is inconvenient for the individuals involved. You tend to think of loneliness and depression as maladaptive behavior in yourself rather than as a consequence of the disconnection from others, and the consequent lack of care and concern for others, that your culture demands.

And, at midlife, individualization leads directly to a kind of powerlessness, especially among men, where individualization as a value has been honed to a fine art. Men must not admit weakness. Men must not ask for help. Men must not share with others their feelings or inner struggles. Men must not be vulnerable. All of these deadly attitudes are a direct result of our cultural obsession with exaggerated individualization. Our culture's unreasonable expectations may be focused on men, but neither sex is completely free of its stultifying effects.

In your own life, take a look at how you manage a few simple interactions (since individualization is fundamentally a relationship issue). First, how often and how easily do you ask for help? Does it come naturally? Are you comfortable doing it? How far do you go to avoid it? Next, how do you give or receive complements? Although you'd think that being complemented would be a recognition of your achievement as an individual, it is rather a stark reminder of your vulnerability in relationships. The more individualized you have become, the harder it is for you to complement or to be complemented. Next, how often do you use the words, 'have to,' 'got to,' 'need to,' etc.? These are words that pretend to be polite excuses, whereas they're really masks behind which you hide your self-interest. A more relational person won't mind saying the truth: "I want to." Likewise, and finally, how often do you use the word 'can't'? Again, it's an excuse so that you won't need to recognize your social connectedness. What you really mean, but decline to say so, is 'I won't!'

How does all this stunt your growth as a mature individual? The answer is clear so long as you keep in mind that navigating the midlife transition from self-absorbed adulthood to other-centered maturity involves a relational process. You can't (not because you don't want to, but because it's not emotionally or spiritually possible) make this transition alone. Yes, you have to make all the critical decisions along the way, but unless you've developed the capacity to be vulnerable, to share with others what's going on with you, to ask for help, and to offer genuine gratitude and apology, you'll lack both the courage and the context to make — and to stick to — the tough decisions. Look around you at those whom you know who are stuck and struggling. Can you now see how, in most cases, their growth is being stunted by their cultural assumptions? Now, what about you? What cultural changes (changes in attitude and assumptions) do you need to make to put your own growth back on the fast track? And whom are you going to ask for help to do it?

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
Copyright © 2009 H. Les Brown

The Second Hallmark of Maturity

2009-09-27T13:32:48-04:00

Have you completed the midlife transition from adulthood to maturity? It's really quite easy to judge: there are two major hallmarks or characteristics that set maturity apart from mere adulthood. We've already said quite a bit about he first hallmark, which involves replacing the 'borrowed' values, goals, aspirations, and expectations of adulthood (inherited from family, peers, teachers, religious and political leaders, the media and culture) with personally-significant core values that are generally independent from outside influences, opinions and judgments. Maturity replaces the phrase 'supposed to' with 'choose to.'

However, this is only the first hallmark of maturity. The second hallmark is almost a corollary of the first, although it doesn't always follow upon it. Once we make the decision to adopt a core value system that resonates with the person who we are (or discern that we are meant to be), we have the option to choose the goals toward which we are going to strive. The hallmark of a mature person who has successfully completed the midlife transition appears as a set of goals that are concerned more with giving back than getting. An adult is someone who has achieved a certain amount of independence and is pursuing goals that foster and promote that independence and personal well-being. The mature person is one whose energies are focused on forwarding the prosperity and well-being of his or her family, community, nation, culture, and humanity as a whole. Midlife transition moves a person from enlightened self-interest to making a lasting contribution to human progress. I don't think that we consider this seriously enough as a sign of the midlife transition.

Sharing with others is one of those fundamental lessons we all learned in kindergarten, according to Robert Fulghum. There's a big difference between letting someone else play with our toys and promoting the well-being of others in all our affairs. So, we don't really 'learn' the lesson of 'sharing' until much later in life, if ever. There are two models that we can use to demonstrate the evolution of our character or personality from selfishness to self-transcendence. One is Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and the other is Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral growth.

As we mount the pyramid of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, each individual should be progressing from the satisfaction of the most basic of our physical needs, through the levels of self-actualization, toward a need for spiritual actualization, or self-transcendence. We can't go beyond (transcend) ourselves merely by making sure that our basic needs are met, nor by mere creativity: by becoming parents, by winning a triathlon, or by being promoted to COO. It requires, instead, that each one of us learn to embrace his or her personal destiny, which means the actualizing (to the greatest degree possible) our personal potential. It also requires that we develop our discernment (the ability to see the potential of those around us) and our responsibility (the capacity to use our potential for the greatest benefit of others).

Achieving the highest level of fulfillment in Maslow's hierarchy of needs (spirituality or self-transcendence) means a sensitivity and willingness to respond to the needs of others. Our level of maturity, then, can be measured by how responsive we are to the needs of the powerless, the disenfranchised, the neglected, the despised, and all those who are, for whatever reason, unable to advocate for themselves. Caring for the helpless is the hallmark not only of the maturity of a person or of a society, but also of its spirituality. Judeo-Christian tradition teaches that how you relate to these people — especially when they behave toward you as an enemy — is an indication of how you relate to your God.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen (who was the original television evangelist) told the story of an execution held in one of the Nazi death camps during World War II. Several men were to be publicly executed in front of the whole camp by being strangled to death by being hung with piano wire. Among those to be executed was a young boy. As the gathered inmates watched the agonizing death throes of the condemned, one turned to his companion and said bitterly, "Where's your God now?" The other just pointed to the dying boy and replied, "There he is!"

The second model that we can use to understand the evolution of character from self-interest to self-transcendence comes from psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. He proposed six stages of moral growth, grouped into three levels: the pre-conventional (where values are derived from fulfilling our own needs), the conventional (where values are derived from compliance with familial or social convention), and the post-conventional (where behavior is governed by universally-accepted values independent from self-interest or social norms). Kohlberg commented that he wondered whether the highest stage of moral growth — adherence to universal ethical principles — was actually attainable, because he had never in all his research come a cross anyone who acted consistently at that level. Yet this is precisely the level that distinguishes maturity from adulthood: the end and goal of the midlife transition.

Last week, I was privileged to have as my guest on my internet radio program, Midlife Matters, singer and songwriter Eric Proffitt. As I interviewed Eric, I discovered that his story exemplifies what constitutes the midlife transition toward true maturity. From a very early age, Eric showed musical talent and a passion for singing. He was a self-taught musician who found learning songs such a challenge that he found it easier to write his own music. Like many of us, as he grew into adulthood, he turn aside from his passion and took up a career as an IT professional to support himself and his family. It was only when circumstances forced him and his family to move away from his market that he saw an opportunity to do something more with the music that he so loved.

As a a father of five daughters and an eye-witness to the destruction caused by the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Eric was moved to write a ballad, "Little Child" in honor of the youngsters who were lost in the devastation of the day care center in that building. The song came to the attention of the United Nations Conference on Human Trafficking, and he was invited to present it in person at the first international conference in Vienna, Austria in January of 2008. Stricken by what he heard and observed at that conference, Eric determined to make it his personal cause. In August of this year, Eric ran 500 miles in heavy chains from the Statue of Liberty in New York City to the grave of the British abolitionist, William Wilberforce, in London. Eric is now dedicating his life and his music to giving a voice to these voiceless slave children of the sex trade, and lending these — the most powerless — the strength of his witness.

Although chronologically a rather young man, Eric shows the hallmarks of a successful midlife transition. Like all of the heroes of our age (or, indeed of any age), Eric displays a practical spiritual maturity and an adherence to universal ethical principles regardless of the cost to himself. How did Eric — a remarkably talented man, but otherwise quite ordinary — make it to the top of Maslow's hierarchy and achieve Kohlberg's highest stage of moral growth? In other words, how did Eric successfully complete the midlife transition to achieve a maturity that replaced self-interest with self-transcendence? He told me his secret in the course of our interview: he prays every day. It's that simple. It's that difficult.

It reminds me of the story told in the Judeo-Christian Scriptures about Naaman, the Syrian general in the army of King Benhadad II. He was diagnosed with leprosy, and went, as a last resort to Elisha, a prophet in Israel. Elisha told him to bathe seven times in the Jordan River. Naaman was about to give up in disgust (and rage) and return to Syria because the cure seemed too simple and easy. His servants reminded him that, to cure his leprosy, he would have done anything Elisha had told him to do no matter how difficult it was. Why would he not do something so simple? He did it, so the story goes, and was cured. How often do we, faced with a similar simple solution, act like Naaman and avoid doing the simple basics only because they seem to be not difficult enough?

The second hallmark of maturity is a life that is committed to the service of others. Directing our midlife transition from the dissatisfaction of a life lived for ourselves to a level of spiritual and ethical maturity and personal fulfillment just by daily prayer and meditation seems way too simple and easy a solution. On the other hand, what have you got to lose?